


THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



THE 



KNOCKABOUT CLUB SERIES. 



BY C. A. STEPHENS. 
THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB IN THE WOODS. 
THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ALONGSHORE. 
THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB IN THE TROPICS 



BY FRED. A. OBER. 

CLUB IN THE 



EVER- 



THE KNOCKABOUT 

GLADES. 
THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB IN THE ANTILLES. 
THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB IN SPAIN. 
THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB IN NORTH AFRICA. 
THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH 

ALAIN. 



ESTES AND LAURIAT, Publishers, 

BOSTON, MASS. 



THE 



Knockabout Club 



ON THE 



SPANISH MAIN. 



BY 



FRED. A. OBER, 

AUTHOR OF 
TRAVELS IN MEXICO," "THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB IN THE EVERGLADES," ETC. 



FULLY ILLUSTRATED. 



■■HIGH? ■*# 



o 1 



MY 25 1891 



BOSTON: 
ESTES AND LAURIAT, 

PUBLISHERS. 



Copyright, 1891, 
By Estes and Lauriat. 



All Rights Reserved. 

Ftib\ 




SBlniticrsttD ^rcss: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



/ 



/ 



BIOGRAPHY. 




!R. FREDERICK ALBION OBER was born in Beverly, 
Mass. The public schools gave him his early training, 
and he received no other assistance from schools, save 
one year in the Agricultural College. At fourteen he 
learned the shoemaker's trade, at eighteen was working 
in a drug store, at twenty-one was in business with his 
father. He is a lineal descendant of Richard Ober, — the first American of 
that name who came from England to Beverly in 1664. He imbibed 
early a fondness for field sports and natural history ; and while working 
at his trades, rising early and laboring late at night, he taught himself taxi- 
dermy and collected and classified nearly all the birds of New England. 
Audubon and Wilson were his favorite authors ; and at last, yielding to a 
desire to tread in their footsteps, he abandoned business and went to Florida, 
in 1872 and 1874. Here he hunted to his heart's content, lived with the 
Seminoles, camped with a grandson of Osceola, and explored Lake Okeechobee 
to the Everglades. To accomplish the exploration of Lake Okeechobee, Mr. 
Ober carried two boats to Florida, sailed down Mosquito Lagoon and Indian 
River, and hauled his boats across to the Kissimmee River, by which his party 
reached the lake, being gone over a month, and encountering many strange 
adventures, which were published in " Forest and Stream " and Appleton's 
"Journal." In 1876 and 1880 he went to the West Indies for the Smithsonian 
Institution, exploring the Caribbee Islands from Porto Rico to Trinidad, and 
discovering twenty-two birds till then unknown to scientists. Two of them 



X BIOGRAPHY. 

were named by the naturalists in his honor. His adventures there with the 
Indians and half-wild negroes were published ten years ago, in a book that 
gave him a wide-spread reputation. In 1881 he turned his attention to Mexico, 
allured by the fascinating story of the conquest as told by Bernal Diaz, one of 
the conquerors. On his way thither he touched at Cuba and afterward visited 
the wonderful ruined cities of mysterious Yucatan. Arrived at the city of 
Mexico, he ferreted out the remains of early civilization, climbed to the peak 
off Popocatepetl, three miles above the sea-level, rode a thousand miles on 
horseback, and then returned home after seven months' absence. In 1883 
and 1885 he again visited Mexico, penetrating to little-known portions of the 
country. In 1887 he was again in the West Indies, in 1888 in Spain and 
North Africa, and in 1890 in Venezuela and the Spanish Main. The exploration 
of these various fields has consumed a dozen years and more. The thrilling 
incidents connected therewith have been given to the world in his books and 
lectures, with which many thousands are familiar. Although at first travelling 
for the sake of adventure and rare birds, latterly Mr. Ober has drifted away 
from the study of natural history, and has shaped his journeys with a view to 
the exposition of the early history of America. Hence it is that Spain and 
Spanish America have absorbed his time and talents. In recognition of his 
endeavors in this field, he has been appointed special commissioner by our 
Government to the West Indies and Spain in connection with the x approaching 
Columbian Exposition. As many of our readers may have surmised, he himself 
is the " Knockabout Club," or the " Historian," the " Professor," and the 
"Doctor" in one individual; and nearly all the adventures narrated are his 
own, while his descriptions are from his own observation and can be relied 
upon as authentic. It is his constant aim to instruct as well as amuse, and to 
convey interesting information without a sacrifice of the truth. 



CONTENTS. 



♦ 

Chapter Page 

I. Wanted : A Country to explore 15 

II. The Voyage to Venezuela . . . . . 22 

III. Across the Caribbean Sea . 36 

IV. Some Doings on Shipboard ...... . . . 44 

V. Curacoa, — A Little Dutch Paradise . . . . . 51 

VI. The Mysterious Continent . . . 65 

VII. A Journey into the Coffee Region 79 

VIII. Land of the Liberator 93 

IX. From the Coast to Caracas 106 

X. In Venezuela's Capital ..119 

XI. What We found in the Museum 133 

XII, Something to eat, in the Tropics . 148 

XIII. Pearls of the Spanish Main 158 

XIV. With Columbus and Sir Walter Raleigh . . 168 

XV. Up and Down the Orinoco . . 177 

XVI. Pirates and Buccaneers 189 

XVII. CORO AND THE PARAGUANA 20 7 

XVIII. Maracaibo and the Last Lake-Dwellers ,...220 



i4 



ILL USTRA TIONS. 



Page 

Scene in the Market. Caracas ... . 153 

Columbus, the First Discoverer . . . 160 

A Giant of the Venezuelan Forest . . 163 

In a Gum Swamp 166 

Landing of Columbus at Trinidad . . 169 

Sir Walter Raleigh 173 

Execution of Raleigh 175 

The Delta of the Orinoco 179 

The Orinoco at Caicara 183 

On an Orinoco River Steamer . . . 187 

Drake's Lieutenant on a Piratical Cruise 190 

Sir Francis Drake 191 

•• A Spanish Ship laden with Silver " . 193 
" The People made a Desperate Resist- 
ance *' .... 197 

Morgan's Men in Camp 201 



Page 

An Expedition in Search of Secreted 

Treasure 205 

" They would stare at us with Admiring 

Eyes" 211 

A Coffee- Planter's House . . . . . 212 

A Cactus-Covered Plain . . . . . 213 

A Scavenger ......... 216 

A Guajiro Village, Lake Maracaibo . . 221 

Belle of a Guajiro Village 225 

Pirates revisiting the Scenes of their 

Depredations . ' 227 

Houses of the Guajiros . . .. . . . 231 

Hobby-Horse of a Maracaibo Baby . . 233 
" The Fire-Ship fell afoul of the Admiral's 

Vessel " ......... 235 



/ 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB 

ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



CHAPTER I. 

WANTED: A COUNTRY TO EXPLORE. 

A Quiet Little Spot. — "Let us Camp." — We buy Land. — Woods, Beach, and 
Boats. — A Canoe and a Hammock. — Writing up our Last Cruise. — The 
Professor contented. — Our Latch-String always out. — The Summer Home 
of the Knock abouters. 

HE summer succeeding our journey into Africa, the 
events of which are set forth in our last book, the 
Professor and the Historian — namely, the writer — 
rested in the country of their birth. We had been 
" knockabouting " so much that we had collected 
more material than we could readily digest while 
on the wing, so we looked around for a quiet spot at which to spend 
the season. We sadly needed some particular abiding-place, where 
we could deposit the numerous trophies of travel we had accumulated 
in our various expeditions, and where we could study, and arrange the 
data for our books and lectures. Owing to the fact that our plan for 
some years to come was to travel a portion of each year at least, we 
did not wish to "settle down" and buy a house in which to dwell. 
And that was the problem we set ourselves to solve, — how to live by 
ourselves for the summer, and still not be committed to permanent 




1 6 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

housekeeping. The Professor was greatly exercised, because he 
wanted to locate at once, and begin the arrangement and cataloguing 
of his botanical, mineralogical, and historical collections. He gave the 
subject the profound attention that such a great mind as his, con- 
stantly occupied in pondering weighty questions, might be expected to 
bestow. 

I, the Historian, knew that something was about to be evolved, and 
so held my peace. At last it came. Solemnly removing his spec- 
tacles, and carefully polishing the glasses on the red and yellow silk 
bandana he always carried in his coat-tail pocket, he gazed at me in 
an absent manner, and opened his mouth. He uttered but three 
words, but those words at once shaped our course for the next six 
months. 

u Let us camp," said the Professor ; then he placed his spectacles 
astride his nose again, replaced the red and yellow silk bandana in 
his coat-tail pocket, and resumed the book he had been reading. A 
moment later he was perfectly oblivious of my presence and had already 
forgotten the matter under discussion. He had delivered himself of 
his opinion, and that was the end of it. It was a very good sugges- 
tion, without doubt ; but it was very easy to say, " Let us camp," 
though not quite so easy to carry out the suggestion. Knowing the 
Professor as I did, having travelled thousands of miles in his company, 
over sea, through forest, in various lands, I very well knew that having 
indicated what we ought to do, he would leave it for me to do ; and 
so I did it. That very week I departed into the country in search of 
a place to camp. It was early in June, and the country was dressed 
in its very best garb. All the summer flowers were nodding their 
pretty heads ; all the birds were singing their finest songs ; and Nature 
at the very top notch of her best performance. I thought I knew 
just where to go, and immediately went there. A new railroad, along 
the southern shore of one of the largest and most beautiful lakes in 
igland, had just made accessible a tract of country very little 



WANTED: A COUNTRY TO EXPLORE. 



17 



known. It was almost by instinct, as it were, that I found out the 
prettiest spot on the lake, and there decided we should pitch our 
camp. 

The next thing in order was to find the owner of the land, and, if 
possible, purchase it. He proved to be a young farmer, who had a 
large acreage of pasture-land bordering the lake, and who was anxious 
to convert some of it into cash by a process more direct than the feed- 




THE PRETTIEST SPOT ON THE LAKE. 



ing of its scanty herbage to a herd of cows. But as he had conceived 
the idea that this lake-land was very valuable, though really it had 
little value except such as the Professor and I could create by our 
improvements, it was some time before we could come to an agree- 
ment. There was nothing tangible to base an estimate of value on, 
you see. If we assumed it from what the land produced, it would be 
very low indeed, because the hillside portion, which only could be 
pastured, was covered chiefly with sweet-fern and blackberry vines, 
and the beach portion had no grass on it at all. But although the 
farmer could not perceive it of his own vision, the place had an 



l8 THE KXOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

(esthetic value; and as this was an unknown quantity and hard to 
measure, the farmer, on his part, exaggerated it, while I, in my own 
interest, tried to keep it within bounds. 

Ah, but it was a beautiful spot, — this little acre I was anxious to 
secure ! First, it was situated at the extremity of a deep bay, at either 
end of which was a high hill, and between them a curving beach of 
white sand, a mile in length. Behind the beach was a deep belt of 
pines and maples, with smiling farm-lands beyond, and ranges of high 
hills overtopping all. I think it must have been this very bay, with 
its waters of clear and sparkling blue, that suggested, many years ago, 
to the red Indian, the aboriginal name of the lake, — the ."Smile of 
the Great Spirit." 

There, dear reader of these " Knockabouts," you now know just 
where the Professor and I decided to pass our summer; and you will 
know, I hope, where to seek us out when you desire to become 
acquainted with us in the flesh. 

Well, as I was saying, it was just where the crescent sand-beach 
met the western hill-slope that this spot was found. The hill came 
clown to the water, green with sweet fern and sweeter clover, with 
great gray rocks protruding from a tangle of blackberry vines, and 
plunged its feet into the lake with a protecting fringe of maples, elms, 
and alder-bushes. Back of this was a bit of wood, with a dozen dif- 
ferent kinds of trees in it, but hardly large enough to conceal one 
from the country road that bounded this property on one side. The 
beauty of the place was the beach of pure white sand, soft and spark- 
ling, which here curved like a cimeter and made a perfect landing- 
e for boats and canoes. The pine-trees came down almost to the 
h-rim, and sweet-scented bayberry-bushes fringed it; and this was 
lli'- most charming place in the world for a bath, where you could 
enjoy a plunge, or a run along the beach for several hundred yards. 

On the level lawn, between the bit of wood and the beach, stood 
an old house, that had been built there some years ago by winter 



WANTED: A COUNTRY TO EXPLORE. 



19 



fishermen. These men were master-workmen in a car-shop, five 
miles away, and they had constructed the house as though it had been 
a fine residence, although it was but a little shanty, and had only two 
rooms and a stable. This house, I concluded, would do for our sum- 
mer residence, if I could secure it ; but it did not belong to the owner 




THE PROFESSOR AT WORK. 



of the land, and would require a separate negotiation. It was perfectly 
equipped for housekeeping, having a stove in it, beds in the chamber, 
chairs, table, crockery, — in fact, everything we should need. Only 
the necessary provisions, clean linen, etc., would have to be brought 
here, to make it available for our stay. 

At last, after much adjusting of differences, the young farmer and 
I came to an agreement ; a surveyor was brought up to measure the 
land the very next day ; a deed was drawn up ; and the Professor and I 



20 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

had a place we could call our own. I lost no time in concluding an 
arrangement with the gentlemen who owned the house, whereby we 
could occupy it during the summer and they might use it in winter- 
time, then hastened back to Boston, to bring up my friend. 

It was a very great labor to move him and his collections to the 
place, as the camp is half a mile distant from the railroad station and 
the nearest house ; but that once done, everything moved on pleas- 
antly and happily. 

The Professor was more than delighted ; he expressed his ap- 
proval of my purchase in fitting terms, condescended to look over the 
ground once in a general survey, and then he selected the most 
comfortable corner of the house for his own, and the pleasantest nook 
on the beach for his workshop out-of-doors. 

After that he was wrapped up in himself and in his pursuits, pay- 
ing no attention to outside affairs except at meal-times, when he 
would rather impatiently inquire the cause of any delay in providing 
nourishment at the proper time. He seemed to think that sustenance 
might be obtained from the trees or the rocks, evidently without 
labor, as he never gave a thought to providing any. All this work 
fell on me ; but as I was only too glad . to have my friend with me, 
and willing to pay the price for his company, I did it without a 
murmur. 

Now, this long introductory is put in merely to tell our friends 
where we passed the time since we last met, and how it was we came 
to write this present volume. 

We had been off on a cruise for new adventure and information, 
and having garnered in as much as we could carry, we retired to this 
secluded nook to work it up into shape, — in other words, to make the 
book you, dear reader, are about to peruse. 

We are perfectly contented with our bit of Paradise, and its only 
drawback is its loneliness. Being human and (we hope) sympathetic, 
we feel rather regretful that so much loveliness should be monopolized 



WANTED: A COUNTRY TO EXPLORE. 



21 



by ourselves alone. I never have anything of the kind that all human- 
ity would enjoy, without wishing all my friends to share in it. So, 
dear knockabouts, take this as an invitation ; bring your tents and 
camping things along, and help us to your company. You may not 
find us extremely sociable, but you will find a welcome ; we have 
boats and a canoe, hammocks, provisions, half a mile of beach to sport 
on, and hundreds of square miles of water in front of us, dotted with 
islands and said to be swarming with fish. 




OUR TROPICAL HAMMOCK. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE VOYAGE TO VENEZUELA. 

Sudden Rise in the Temperature of the Water in the Gulf Stream. — Floating 
Gulf-Weed. — The Flying-Fish. — The Tropic Bird. — Sight of Tropic Isles. 



WM 



HEN the Professor and I began to cast about for a 

country in which to wear away the wire edge of 

^31 winter, we were much " put to it " to find one 

WA^-wfcM measurably accessible and yet sufficiently attrac- 

WBm Afc /l£? tive. For consider that this was not our first 

voyage in search of the sunbeams that Winter 

stores away somewhere in the South. And it was understood that 

we did not wish to get too far away, — not so far but that we 

could get back again, perchance, when the trees put forth their 

blossoms and the bobolinks arrived. Anybody, perhaps, may journey 

into the tropics; but only once a year do the apple-trees blossom 

and the bobolinks pour forth their ravishing melody ; so indeed 

it must be a country of surpassing attractions that would woo us 

from prospective delights like these. 

Professor La Vaca, my intimate friend and travelling-companion, 

had visited, with me, most of the Spanish-speaking peoples of the 

World. We had been wrecked on the reefs of the Bermudas, 

had sailed the seas of the Bahamas, circumnavigated Cuba, explored 

ico, and gained a glimpse of South America. Ten years ago, 

at the mouth of the Orinoco, we had been obliged to turn back from 




A GLIMPSE OF FLORIDA. 



THE VOYAGE TO VENEZUELA 



25 



a journey into that mysterious continent. Ever since, whenever the 
season for travel came around, we had cast anxious glances in that 
direction. But South America is a far country, and the voyage 
thither expensive to the individual so unfortunate as to have to 
labor half the year for the wherewithal to exist during the other 
half. At least, it seemed so when we received replies to the letters 
sent the great steamship lines running to Brazil and Panama. It 
would need a small fortune in order to accomplish Chili, the Argen- 




PASSTNG THE LIGHT-SHIP 



tine, or Brazil, since two or three steam-lines have the monopoly of 
travel and traffic. But the Professor, who is more persistent than I 
am, discovered a way to reach the continent, to " sample " a republic 
or two pertaining to our South American sister, and to fill ourselves 
up with caloric for the winter to come. He it was, I will confess, 
who brought to my notice the fact that a real American line ran 
straight down to the land of our desires, without a stop by the way. 
I had heard of it before, to be sure, but had given it scant attention, 
thinking it devoted more space and care to freight than passengers. 



^6 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



But in this I was mistaken ; for the " Red D " Line, I found, ran 
half a dozen steamers with special view to the comfort of passengers, 
and with a round-trip rate that promised the Professor and myself 




NASSAU HARBOR. 



enough of our winter earnings remaining for the seaside and moun- 
tains of New England on our return. In a word, the regular rate to 
Venezuela and back, including excellent fare and lodging en route, 
hardly exceeds five dollars per day. We had often paid this at the 
seaside, and all we got for our money was but tolerable fare and a 



THE VOYAGE TO VENEZUELA. 2 J 

monotonous, even irksome, existence. In this case, superadded to the 
comforts of life was the fact that we should be all the time travelling 
onward, with changing scene and new objects for contemplation. 

The steamers of the " Red D " fleet range all the way from sixteen 
hundred to twenty-eight hundred tons, the smallest being the " Valencia " 
and the largest the " Venezuela." We would have chosen the largest, 
of course, had her day of departure coincided with ours, but com- 
promised on the " Philadelphia," a stanch steamer of twenty-one 
hundred tons, and with a record for comfort and safety. The 
" Philadelphia " was the steamer particularly mentioned also in our 
guidebook as that on which the writer of that excellent pamphlet 
had taken passage. 

It did seem rather ungrateful to leave New England just when 
the first signs of spring were in the air. Spring, in our country, as 
a certain well-known author has written, is a maiden hard to woo, 
and proves to be backward in coming forward ; but like our own true 
Yankee girls, she is well worth having when once you get her. There 
is a bit of acerbity in her temper, perhaps, that our maidens lack, — at 
least, all those that I know, — and a certain coldness, w 7 ith which she 
masks her real intentions; but when with a hop-skip-and-a-jump, she 
plumps herself into your arms, — why, all the world could not take her 
from you ! That is the way you feel — or ought to feel — when the 
May mornings come around. Well, as I was saying, the signs of 
spring were appearing even the week before we left : the wild geese 
were tracking the skies, the crow-blackbirds flocking in the taller 
trees, a robin or tw r o hopping about the fields, and one morning 
a blackbird's note was heard on the still air. 

From all these harbingers of better days we tore ourselves away ; 
from what sweeter charms we will not venture to state, lest one might 
think we expected to sail direct to Paradise. 

Now, who can describe a sea voyage and make it interesting ? 
Washington Irving did, you will say ; but that was when sea voyages 



2 S THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN 

were events; and, again, he had the field all to himself. I have made 
voyages enough in sailing-vessels to learn to abhor them ; life is too 
short for one to spend it on the wave. I always wanted to " duck " 
the author of " Life on the Ocean Wave," and do hope that if he 
ever made a voyage (which I doubt) he was seasick all the time. 
The good Lord made dry land enough for all the inhabitants thereof, 
and He meant for man to stay there, I am sure. But man is a roving 
animal, and will continue to be to the end of the chapter. 

There were not many passengers on the " Philadelphia," which I 
attribute to the fact that the travelling world is not yet aware of 
" Red D " attractions. Be that as it may, the Professor and I had 
no friends to see us off, while the few other passengers had quite a 
cabin full. They had friends thoughtful enough to send last messages 
to be read in the outer harbor also ; while we had no such mementos 
of living beings ashore who considered our departure or our return 
as of any moment whatever. We possessed ourselves in stoical, 
perhaps cynical, calmness, at these signs of affection (in others, be- 
stowed upon others) ; and even when one of the gentlemen from Con- 
necticut pulled a love-note from his wife out of the pocket of a shirt 
he donned, the second day out, \\e were not greatly affected thereby. 
Man, having been created gregarious, — that is, with an inherent hank- 
ering to " flock " with his fellow-man, — and having, moreover, vanity 
enough to cause him to desire to be loved (whatever sentiment he 
may entertain in return), is naturally envious of others more favorably 
regarded than himself. Hence (in a purely impersonal way), the 
Professor and I may have been a trifle envious ; but as we care 
for nobody else more than we care for each other, and are convinced 
that there are greater treasures to seek than we have yet acquired, — 
why, we yield to the others their joys, real or imaginary, and go 
our way. 

The statue of Liberty waved us a last farewell as the pilot 
stepped over the side (his pocket full of letters for the " dear ones " 



THE VOYAGE TO VENEZUELA. 



2 9 



pertaining to the Four-Men-from-Connecticut), and New York grew 
dim in the distance. Then we were alone upon the briny deep; 
our voyage had begun. 

The 26th of March, 1890, was as fair a day as ever old March 
begot. The 27th was still fair, but the sea was heavy and the wind 
ahead. On the second day out, at noon, we entered the Gulf Stream, 
striking its northern edge, and left it toward the next morning. At 
this point it is about one hundred miles across ; and its temperature 
varies considerably. The highest recorded this trip in mid-stream 
was 76 , though it sometimes runs up to 8o°, even as high as 82 and 
84 . It is interesting to note the rapid leap in the thermometric scale 
as the Gulf Stream is reached. The water will register forty-five, fifty, 
fifty-two, then suddenly jump to sixty-six, seventy, and seventy-five. 

Our course was almost due south, a little eastwardly, — as straight 
a course as sailor ever steered. The third and fourth days appeared 
the gulf-weed, at first in sprays and spangles, then in drifts and 
windrows. Finally, and especially during the fourth day's voyaging, 
the sea was brightened with great sheets of golden brown. So blue 
was the water, so golden-bronze the drifts, that we would fain be 
artists, that we might transfer the beautiful colors to canvas. 

These drifts of weed were seemingly alive, and little fish leaped 
out as we sailed by. We know, of course, that many investigators 
have examined the gulf-weed, and their findings have long since been 
published to the world. The floating weed is all alive with multitu- 
dinous forms of life. 

The fourth and the fifth days showed us those angels of air and 
sea, the flying-fish, at first singly, and rarely seen, then increasing in 
number hour by hour, until the sixth day, the water was alive with them. 
I think it has long been settled that they cannot sustain prolonged 
flight without at least dipping their fins in the briny wave. Many 
and many a time I have watched the flying-fish ; and I really believe 
that there is no more beautiful sight at sea than a flock of them skim- 



-O THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

ming the waves, with silver wings extended wide. They can change 
their course at will apparently, but seem to steer by means of the tail 
and ventral fins, just touching the water with the tip of the tail, and 
then swerving off at a tangent. Many take an undulatory flight, sail- 
ing along for hundreds of yards, but at no great height above the 
waves. Now and then they will dash through the seas, reappearing 
beyond a billow, alternately in air and water. A strong, well-sustained 
flight by a large fish rejoicing in its strength, is a beautiful sight 
indeed ; but more attractive is a little flock of young ones, twenty or 
thirty in number, darting out of the water in a body, like a sudden 
discharge of silvery arrows from Neptune's bow. One night, coming 
out of the cabin after dinner, I found our captain groping about the 
deck in the dusk. He was "fishing for flyers," he said, and had found 
several dead upon the deck. 

During the day it had been very rough, great seas sweeping upon 
us, and now and then spilling across the rail ; and it was probably 
during the advent of one of these seas that the fish came aboard. I 
have often found them on the deck of a sailing-vessel, heavily laden, 
within a few feet of the water ; but unless aided by the seas, these 
fish must have leaped quite fifteen feet above the level of the water. 
They fly with great force. The head of one of them was torn com- 
pletely off, and one striking you in the face would certainly have 
given you a black eye. Those the captain caught were fried next 
morning and given to one of our passengers, who had been the 
victim of an April joke. 

The flying-fish is seldom found north of the Gulf Stream's inner 
edge, and may well be termed a peculiar product of the tropics. An- 
other denizen of the warm zone toward which we were hastening, 
we saw the fourth day out, sailing the air, the tropic bird (Pkcztkon 
(clhcrcus), called by the sailors the boatswain, from its loud, whistling 
cry. It is a most shapely bird, built to cleave the air and breast the 
hurricane. The one we saw must have been at least three hundred 



THE VOYAGE TO VENEZUELA. 31 

miles from land. We were then in the region of the Horse Lati- 
tudes, called by some the " Doldrums,' 1 because of the variable under- 
tides and currents. I shall not merit, perhaps, the name of a tropic 
traveller, if I do not make mention of the Sargasso Sea, the outer edge 
of which we skirted or crossed, and the source, it is said, of the vast 
floats of gulf -weed. But I have crossed these waters so often that it 
seems to me like an old story. Had I not, at some time previous, 
done so, I should call your attention to the fact that this is the sea 
Columbus crossed, on his way to the Bahamas, Cuba, and San 




HEAVING THE LOG. 



Domingo. A venturesome voyage we feel it to have been, in those 
frail caravelas, scarcely larger than a fishing-boat, as we, in our great 
steamer, are tossed by the rough waves mercilessly about. 

Perhaps I ought to add a word or two anent the steamer, — our 
floating home for nearly a month to come. The Professor and I 
were agreeably surprised to find such comfort, cleanliness, and sys- 
tem aboard this boat. We both have crossed the Atlantic in the 
great English steamers, and we both declare that in no whit, save in 
size, do they surpass these of the Venezuelan line. The staterooms 
are quite as large as in many of those, the service prompt, and the crew 



32 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

and officers efficient. The menu is nearly as complete as the best of 
the transatlantics, while our steward has a reputation of his own for 
elegant catering. At the head of our table sat the burly and genial 
Captain Chambers, who treated us with the cordiality of a father, and 
beamed upon us at every meal save lunch. To say that he is a 
native of the State of Maine, born on land and bred on the sea, is 
enough, at present, in his honor. 

The second day out, just at the time and place predicted by our 
captain, we sighted the crack steamship of the line, the " Venezuela," 
on her way to New York, flying the American flag, and the great red 
" D " conspicuous on her smoke-stacks. Her sister ship, the " Caracas," 
we expected to meet at Curacoa, and by her send back our first letter 
to the " States." As I write these lines in my notebook, land is in 
sight, the heights of Curacoa, while we sighted the first landfall, Buen 
Ayer, three hours before, at twelve o'clock, noon. 

The first land of the southward trip was Mona Island. This lies 
directly between San Domingo and Puerto Rico, and appeared to us 
as a bluff headland, standing up bravely in the morning light. It is 
said to be about six miles long, with water and coco-trees on its 
other side, but is uninhabited. 

How many misty memories arise, of man's inhumanity to man, 
as these islands, San Domingo and Puerto Rico, are brought before 
us ! The eastern province of San Domingo belonged to a famous 
Indian princess, at the time of the coming of the Spaniards, and 
Puerto Rico to a race of Indians distinguished for their manv fine 
qualities. Thousands of peaceful people dwelt there then; now it is 
centuries since the last of them perished, driven to swift death by the 
murderous Spaniards. 

Ten years ago, in March, 1880, I sailed around Puerto Rico, and 
many visions of beauty arise, as I recall its beautiful hills and harbors. 
It is a thirty-six-hours' sail across the Caribbean Sea from Mona to 
Curacoa. We cannot distinguish any difference between the waters 



THE VOYAGE TO VENEZUELA. 35 

of the Caribbean and the Atlantic, except that we met rougher treat- 
ment here than there. This was the reverse of what I had expected, 
remembering my many sails on the waters of this sea, and the long 
smooth track of the sun as I used to watch it set from my camp in 
the Caribbean Mountains. 

The fourth and fifth days we were in the latitude of those isles of 
calm in which I camped for twenty months a dozen years ago. Their 
memory comes back to me like the visions of one's long-past youth ; 
for I was young then, full of adventure and spirit, with a heart for 
any exploit. Not that the fire has died away, or is in any wise 
dimmed even ; but that my work as an explorer is done. Then I 
discovered a score of birds, unknown even to science, the skins of 
which are in our National Museum, and which might have been 
fluttering in the forests to-day, unknown and undiscovered, but for 
me. Ah, the world was new then ; the forest spirits beckoned 
to me to come and woo them, and I went. The world is just as 
bright and enjoyable now as then, but enjoyment takes other forms, 
and as for adventure — I have had my fill ! 



CHAPTER III. 



ACROSS THE CARIBBEAN SEA. 



Adventures of the Past. — Devil-Birds of the Mountains. — The Isles that lie 

BEYOND OUR KEN. — A MONOLOGUE ON MONKEYS. — An ORIGINAL POEM BY AN AB- 
SENT Friend. 

deck the first evening succeeding our entrance 
into the Caribbean Sea, while yet Mona Island 
lay dimly outlined astern, I found my old friend, 
the Professor, gazing eastward with a far-away 
look on his face. 

" Away over there, out of sight," he said, as I 
joined him, " lie the islands we hunted through 
twelve years ago. 

" What glorious adventures we had then, amigo 
mio ! Shall we ever have the like again ? Shall 
we find new birds awaiting us in the forests 
ahead of us now, or Carib Indians to guide us through the wilds, 
and entertain us in their huts of palm-leaves? 

" I am thinking of the life we led, and the joyful existence of that 
happy period of our lives. Ah, me ! if we could only be always young, 
and eagerly looking forward to new adventures ! " 

This was a long speech for the Professor; but I knew that he was 
strangely stirred by these reminiscences of our earlier explorations. 
Above us the bright stars were shining, and the celestial luminaries 
were reflected in the waters of the deep. There is one star I always 




ACROSS THE CARIBBEAN SEA. 



37 



seek when far away from home, — one that invariably reminds me of 
home scenes and the dear ones it shines above. This is the North 
Star, its position unerringly indicated by the pointers of the Dipper. 
Down here, on the verge of the Caribbean, it is much nearer the hori- 
zon than with us in the North, and it crouches lower and lower, the 
farther south we go, while almost exactly opposite rises higher and 
higher the Southern Cross. This constellation rises on our vision in 
the latitude of the Bahamas, and becomes brighter and larger as 
the coast of South America is approached, while the North Star sinks 
finally nearly out of sight. This is the same starry cross Paul and Vir- 
ginia saw in the other hemisphere, lying slantwise in the Southern sky. 
The heavens everywhere declare the glory of God, be it North 
or South, in limpid tropic sky or frosted dome of Northern night, 
ablaze with the celestial lamps of the thither world ! 

A strange cry interrupted our meditations, a wild, piercing, mourn- 
ful shriek, coming to us from the darkness in front of the ship. It 
was startling and weird ; and half the passengers came running to the 
rail, thinking probably some one was being strangled and cast into the 
sea. 

I myself was surprised into an exclamation ; but the Professor 
reassured me by remarking, " That is the diablotin ; don't you 
remember it ? " 

The diablotin, or devil-bird, of the Caribbean Sea had been the 
mystery of this region until we had found out all about its habits. 
When we began our researches, we thought it must be a mythical 
bird. Everybody who professed to have seen it said it was long ago, 
so long ago that he could hardly tell whether it was like a duck or a 
sea-bird. As near as we could ascertain, it was like a duck in shape, 
with a bill like a gull's, in color black and white. Every one agreed 
that it lived in the tops of the highest mountains, and that it burrowed 
a hole just beneath the surface of the earth six feet deep, at the end of 
which it laid its eggs. It could only be found at home while nesting, 



38 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

during the daytime, being nocturnal in its habits, and prowling about 
the sea at night. The opinion among the mountaineers of the islands 
was that the manacon (a species of opossum) had killed all the diablo- 
tins; but we believed that a bird so far-flying as this could not be 
killed by a local disturber like the manacon, and we think we brought 
it to light, ten years ago, in the Island of Saba. 

About two hundred years ago, an old French priest voyaged to 
these islands, and he makes the first mention of the devil-bird : " We 
were now in the season for certain birds called diables, or diablotins 
(little devils), that are said to live and breed in the islands of Domin- 
ica and Guadaloupe. This bird is nearly the size of a fowl, and is 
sometimes called the pullet; its plumage is black, its wings long and 
strong, the legs rather short, the feet like those of a duck, but fur- 
nished with long and strong claws ; its beak is a good inch and a half 
in length, curved, pointed, extremely hard and strong; the eyes are 
large and even with the head, and serve admirably during the night, 
but are useless during the day, so that when surprised out of its retreat, 
it dashes against everything in its way, and at last falls to the earth. 

" These birds live on the fish which they catch in the sea by night. 
After they have finished fishing, they return to the mountains, where 
they live in holes like rabbits, and do not come out again till the 
return of night, to go to the sea. 

" They cry out to one another as they skim the surface of the sea, 
calling and replying." 

These cries, uttered by the devil-birds as they hunted along the 
waves, were what awoke us from our reveries and brought surging 
over us another flood of reminiscence. 

" Do you remember," said the Professor, " our exciting monkey- 
hunt in the mountains of Granada ? The island must lie directly east 
of us now, and cannot be more than two hundred miles away. 

" I recall the glimpses I got from the mountain-forest above Rich- 
mond, where we entered the monkeys' stronghold. First, the blue 



ACROSS THE CARIBBEAN SEA. 



39 



water hazy in the east, foaming as it approaches a wide bay formed of 
a long point of land called the Telescope, and a long island on the 
other side with breakers beyond, caused by the coral reefs. The vil- 
lage of La Baye is formed of huts clustered beneath rows and groups 
of palms. Above it are 
bowl-shaped valleys gold- 
en-green with sugar-cane, 
dotted with thatched huts 
and red - roofed sugar 
buildings beneath bread- 
fruit and mango trees. A 
white - spired church is 
perched conspicuously on 
a long knoll, with its 
chapel-of-ease close by, 
ringed round with low 
trees and overtopped by 
tall cabbage palms. Co- 
co-trees cluster thickly in 
ranks and confined masses 
in the upper valleys ; 
palms are outlined against 
the black mountains, 
which enclose this valley 
of valleys within a valley, 
and of hills enclosing 
hills. A noise near me 
causes me to start ; and I 

withdraw my gaze from the wide-spread view below, and see close at 
my elbow a little ' sugar-bird,' in plumage of black and yellow, tug- 
ging away at the dead leaves of a balisin, or wild plantain. It car- 
ries the dry material to its nest near by, which it defends with great 
spirit, and attacks any bird, no matter how large, coming near it. 




A THATCHED HUT. 



4Q 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN 



Now and then it robs another nest, nearly completed, of its materials, 
making a lively squabble with its owner. 




"IN THE PLEASANT WOODS OF RICHMOND.' 



"Another bird, the grive, or thrush, flies by on silent wing, and 
occasionally alights overhead. It is easily attracted by a noise, and 
approaches very near my face whenever I call it to me. 



ACROSS THE CARIBBEAN SEA. 41 

" The stream below me makes sweet music, which mingles with the 
murmur of the forest in soothing melody. These were some of the 
scenes and sounds that greeted me as I waited patiently the coming 
of the monkeys — that did not come after all — in the pleasant woods 
of Richmond. 

" Late in the evening I saw at a distance a monkey leaping from 
tree to tree, nearly a mile away ; and from the agitation of the tree- 
tops I judged there must have been quite a flock of monkeys in that 
bit of woods. You remember, Histrix, our monkey hunt later on, 
when we did get a monkey, and were so ashamed of ourselves that we 
never told of it ? " 

" Yes, and I remember also the poem our eccentric friend, the 
Doctor, wrote about the skull we brought him from the woods." 

The passengers had gathered about us by this time, and seemed 
greatly interested in our description of the life we once enjoyed in the 
Caribbean Islands. At the mention of the poem they all demanded 
that we should produce it ; and as I had it in my scrapbook, I complied 
with their desire, and read them then and there the Doctor's — 



AN ODE TO A MONKEY, 

SUGGESTED BY HIS SKULL. 

There is no brain within this hollow shell, 
Neither is there a nose wherewith to smell ; 
But time was when this skull was animate, 
Instinct with life, and formed a monkey's pate. 
Among the trees its owner frisked and played, 
And cut up antics in a way not staid, 
Stood on this selfsame head, hung by its paws, 
And chased the parrots and the gay macaws, 
Did everything, in fact, a monkey could, 
Performed all tricks an honest monkey should, 
Excepting one : it never ceased to fail 
Whene'er it tried suspension by its tail. 



42 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 




For if he had tried it, he 'd have come to grief; 

Though perhaps it surpasses all belief, 

But that tail of his he could n't entwine 

About any branch, or limb, or a vine. 

'T was the only failing the monkey had ; 
But this was the ailing that made him sad. 
And he often said to himself, said he, 
" Oh, for a more flexible vertebrae ! 
What would I give to see myself toddle 
About the woods with a mighty caudal 
Appendage, that in a prehensile grasp 
The limb of a forest monarch could clasp." 

No wonder this monkey was feeling sad ; 
That he fell from grace, and went to the bad ; 
That his eyes sank in, and his cheek grew pale, 
When those eyes aforesaid lit on his tail. 



THE DOCTORS CAME. 



This is but a " figurative expression,' 
A sort of " poetical concession." 
And now, to relieve the reader's suspense, 
And also the monkey's — still on the fence — 
In a single sentence let me relate 
Why it was this monkey grew so sedate ; 
Why it was he could n't hang by the tail, 
Cool his heated brain in the perfumed gale. 
Here, then, without any pretence to style, 
Is the reason why that this " animile " 
Grew morose and thin, and so full of bile 
That his victuals hurt him at every trial, 
Though the doctors came from many a mile 
And placed him outside of many a phial 
Of ipecac pills and castor " ile." 
They seemed not to soothe, but only to rile ; 
In his favorite haunt he lingered a while, 
Then gave up the ghost, with a sickly smile. 
When a monkey dies they do not bury 

His last remains in a cemetery ; 

With tenacious tail he clings to a limb, 

And when he lets go, there 's an end to him. 

A naturalist to his grave did come, 




our monkey's skeleton.' 



ACROSS THE CARIBBEAN SEA. 43 

A man who dwelt in a museum, 

Where of monkeys and reptiles they had some 

Ten thousand or more, all pickled in rum ; 

And as luck would have it, he stumbled on 

The remains of our monkey's skeleton ; 

And he jumped for joy, and he said, said he, 

" Why, this is a famous discovery ! 

These are bones of the Cercopithecus , 

To be precise, the true Callitricus, 

A monkey rare, with non-prehensile tail — " 

The very fact our monkey did bewail. 



There was but one opinion among the passengers, and that was 
that the merit of the poem was about equal to the subject that inspired 
it. But they all agreed that it was the best poem they had ever heard 
on that subject — never having heard any other before! 

" Poor Doctor ! " said the Professor. " I wonder where he is now ! 
The last we saw of him, you know, he was sitting under a palm-tree, 
at Biskra, on the borders of the desert, pulling out the molars of a 
wild Bedouin Arab. 

" I think the Arab intended to kill him after the operation was 
over; but he would have to be a very smart Arab to get ahead of the 
Doctor. He said he would rejoin our caravan ; but it is a year now 
since we heard from him, and I 'm half afraid the desert sands cover 
him." 



CHAPTER IV. 



SOME DOINGS ON SHIPBOARD. 



Comfortable Travelling. — Some Things we had to eat. — A Murderer of 
English. — Our Grand Entertainment.— How to study Spanish. — The Lan- 
guage of the Future. — Land in Sight. 



T seems to me that we have at last reached the ideal 
method of travel ; and the Professor agrees with 
me. It is this: To occupy a commodious room on 
the deck of a large steamer, all by yourself ; to have 
electric communication with the pantry and the re- 
freshment counter; to be waited on by attentive 
servants ; to have trained officers in charge of your floating hotel ; 
and to move along without a thought or care for your safety and 
locomotion. Is not this the perfection of travel? 

We went down, as I have said, on the " Philadelphia," but before 
we returned we lived aboard various steamers of the Line, and aboard 
them all found the same unvarying courtesy from commanders, pursers, 
stewards ; and all united to make us contented and happy. 

Altogether, it was one vast pleasure trip, with smooth seas (in the 
main), and magnificent steamers, strange sights, tropical scenery, and 
tropical experiences. That our "inner men " were not neglected, let 
the following menu, selected at random, testify: — 




SOME DOINGS ON SHIPBOARD. 45 



Steamship "Venezuela." — April 30, 1890, 

DINNER. 

Soup : 
Consomme\ Noodle. 

Entree : 

Queen Fritters. 

Chicken a l'Espagnole. 

Corned Beef and Cabbage. 

Roast : 

Ribs of Beef. 

Baked Ham with Wine Sauce. 

Vegetables : 

Boiled and Mashed Potatoes. 

Asparagus. String Beans. Onions. 

Pastry : 
Rice Custard Pudding. Lemon Sauce. 

Apple and Strawberry Pies. 
Wine Jelly. Small Pastry. 

Dessert : 
Pineapple Sherbet. 
Nuts. Raisins. Oranges. Bananas. 

Cheese. Coffee and Tea. 

The "Venezuela" was the steamship we sailed in on our return 
voyage. But I must not anticipate, for we have not yet reached the 
Spanish Main, and have not yet finished with the Southern Sea we 
were sailing on in the last chapter. First let me mention some of the 
passengers we have on board. 

Only six of us are Americans ; two are French engineers on their 
way to build a railroad inland from Lake Maracaibo ; and two are 
Venezuelans. Travel hitherward is light at this season ; but the re- 
turn trips will be crowded with the best of Venezuela's citizens, seek- 
ing a northern clime to summer in. I am brushing up my Spanish, 
and slowly the words and phrases are coming back to me. It is but 
an indifferent Spanish I speak, I am afraid ; but when our French 



46 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

companions proceed to murder our mother English, I am encouraged. 
One of them makes praiseworthy attempts to master our language, 
and neglects no opportunity to exhibit his proficiency of speech. 

We were cosmopolitan, and we were altogether a jolly crowd; 
even the Professor was occasionally excited to hilarity, and often con- 
tributed his share of the conversation. A day or two before our 
southward voyage was to end, there was a great stir among the pas- 
sengers. We were few in number, but we determined to give an en- 
tertainment, even though our only auditors were the officials of the 
ship. They said it was a grand success. On the pages following is 
our programme, drawn in pen-and-ink by our own special artist. 

Every passenger on board was expected to contribute something 
to the entertainment, and after it was over we had our customary so- 
cial chat. This time the conversation turned upon language, and es- 
pecially the language spoken in the country we were sailing to, — the 
Spanish. It is spoken, as the readers of this book well know, in the 
greater portion of the country lying south of the United States, — in 
Mexico, Central America, Cuba, Puerto Rico, partially in several other 
islands of the West Indies, and in all South America except the em- 
pire of Brazil. It is destined to be of great use in the near future to 
our American people ; and it will well repay our young Americans to 
learn this language, spoken by nearly fifty millions of people living on 
this hemisphere where we dwell. 

The Professor and I had tried several " systems " of teaching a 
foreign tongue, and had finally adopted the latest, the " Meisterschaft," 
as that which gave us the most immediate grasp of the language, that 
enabled us to converse in the vernacular with the people who spoke 
it. We found, in an older system, some very good advice on study 
and the acquiring of a foreign tongue, — so good that I wish to repeat 
some of it here. " Divide and conquer," the author says ; repeat, re- 
read ; read easy words at first, but read! The order to be followed 
in the study of a foreign language is: reading, hearing, speaking, 




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SOME DOINGS ON SHIPBOARD. 



49 



writing; acquire, then, the art of reading, of hearing, of speaking, and 
of writing. 

" It is by translating that young people learn best of all the art of 
writing. If you wish to be one day translated, begin yourself by trans- 
lating. . . . The prevailing notion that we must be taught everything 
is a great evil. The most extensive education, given by the most skil- 
ful masters, often produces but inferior characters ; that alone which 
we give to ourselves elevates us above mediocrity. 

" The eminence attained by great men is always the result of self- 
imposed labors. . . . He who attempts composition without first laying 
in a large provision of knowledge will at best deal out none but 
commonplace ideas, and conceal poverty of thought under pomp of 
phraseology. 

" But a second language presents an inexhaustible source of interest- 
ing compositions, which, while they serve as models for the manner of 
treating a subject, afford by translation the best means of practising 
the art of writing. . . . The best mode of imitation in foreign composi- 
tion is double translation, which consists in translating the foreign text 
into the national idiom, and then endeavoring to reproduce that text by 
translating the version back into the original. . . . Those who express 
themselves best in their own language owe their superiority far more 
to their own reflections than to the precepts of the grammarians. 
There was no methodical treatise or grammar at the time Shakspeare, 
Milton, Dryden, Addison, Pope, and Johnson formed their style of 
writing; and the same holds good with regard to Cicero, Virgil, 
Horace, La Fontaine, Dante, Petrarch, and many other celebrated 
writers, who, so far from having learned anything from grammarians, 
supplied them with materials from which they inferred their rules." 

Says Voltaire : " The assiduous reading of good writings will be 
more useful for the formation of a pure and correct style than the 
study of our grammars. We soon acquire the habit of speaking well 
from the frequent reading of those who have written well." 



50 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

There ! You will find some words of wisdom in the above, which it 
will repay you to commit to memory ; to supplement this I add a good 
bit of advice from that excellent book, " The Intellectual Life," by P. 
G. Hamerton : " Much time is saved by following pursuits which 
help each other. To have one main pursuit and several auxiliaries is 
the true principle of arrangement. . . . And whatever is to be mastered 
ought to be mastered so thoroughly that we shall not have to come 
back to it, when we ought to be carrying the war far into the enemy's 
country." 

One thing at a time, and that well done ! I will close these quota- 
tions by one of Martial's epigrams, written more than eighteen hun- 
dred years ago, aimed at the critics of his verses : — 

" The readers and the hearers like my books ; 
And yet some writers cannot them digest. 
But what care I ? for when I make a feast 
I would my guests should praise it, — not the cooks ! " 

But through the window of my stateroom, right abeam, I can 
see the jagged outline of Curacoa. The man at the wheel has just 
tolled six bells, and at four o'clock we expect to toss our mail aboard 
the outward-bound " Caracas." Two days here, and then — on, to the 
coast of the mysterious continent ! 



CHAPTER V. 

CURAgOA, — A LITTLE DUTCH PARADISE. 

Mountains of Phosphate of Lime which have yielded Fortunes. — Wilhelm- 
stadt and schattegat lagoon. — dutch architecture. — a charming cli- 
MATE. — The Market Girls. 



The 

oysters, 



In the olden times, when sea pirates 
and buccaneers sailed the Carib- 
bean, and made it lively for the 
coast settlements of Cuba, Florida, 
and the West Indies, the " Spanish 
Main " was a name of mysterious 
and terrible import. It was applied 
to the stretch of coast lying be- 
tween the Island of Trinidad and 
the Darien. The third voyage of 
the great navigator, Columbus, first 
brought this region to the attention 
of civilized man, and in the year 
succeeding, in 1499, Amerigo Ves- 
pucci made a successful trading 
voyage to this country of savages 
and precious products. 
Island of Margarita was discovered; and the pearls of sea 
purchased from the natives, enriched many a Spaniard and 




52 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



caused Columbus much trouble. For by the king's patent Columbus 
was entitled to a tithe of everything discovered ; and as he sailed 
directly past and over the pearl-producing oyster-beds, leaving them 
to be exploited by petty adventurers, little gain had he for his pains. 
This, we know, is the fate of pioneers, — to plough land and sea, to 
sow seeds and soundings, merely that others may follow and gather 
the fruits thereof. 

Amerigo Vespucci, it has long been held, gave his name to the 
newly discovered continent, but there are some recently who hold 
that the name " America " pre-existed in the aboriginal tongue. Who 
can fail to note the resemblance between Americapan, the ancient 
name of this coast region, and that of America ? Be that as it may- 
the name of the country best known on the northern border of South 
America, Venezuela, was bestowed by the Spaniards. Sailing into the 
great lake, Maracaibo, in 1499, they found Indians dwelling in huts 

built over the water, a long distance from 
the land. They were the first of the kind 
they had seen ; and these lake dwellings so 
forcibly reminded them of the mistress of 
the Adriatic that they called the country 
Venezuela, or the little Venice. A far stretch 
of the imagination, perhaps, but the name 
clung to the country. As yet, the descend- 
ants of those aboriginal lake dwellers cling 
to their primitive dwellings on the shore of 
the great Maracaibo. 
No longer a name merely, pregnant with vague terror, the Spanish 
Main is open and accessible. Where once the slow-sailing caravels 
crawled from headland to headland, and painfully performed their voy- 
ages, swift steamers give their passengers the delights of a pleasure 
trip. A voyage of six days direct brings to our view the mountains 
that guard the portals to the mysterious continent. 




A HALF-BREED. 



CURAQOA, — A LITTLE DUTCH PARADISE. 53 

The year 1499 was one of the most eventful in the last decade of 
that century so pregnant with momentous events. Not the least re- 
markable of the Spanish voyagers to the New World was Alonzo 
de Ojeda, who had with him, as adventurer, Americus Vespucius, 
whose claim to distinction everybody is familiar with. Whether or 
not he was entitled to the peerless place the cosmographers assigned 
him, or whether, indeed, his was the name bestowed upon our conti- 
nents, I will not argue; but his was the most richly rewarded of any 
voyage of that period. Coasting the country now known as the 
" Spanish Main," with many strange adventures and frequent deten- 
tions from the friendly natives, Ojeda and his crew finally sighted an 
island bearing the aboriginal name of Curacoa. The Indians inhabit- 
ing here were of great stature, but not so large nor so numerous that 
they were not soon exterminated, sharing the fate of all the islanders 
of the Caribbean Sea. 

Curacoa, this island thus discovered in the last year of the fifteenth 
century, is about forty miles in length, with a varying breadth of from 
three to seven miles. It lies some forty miles off the coast of Vene- 
zuela, the blue mountains of that portion of terra firma known as the 
Paraguana being in plain sight, on every clear day, from the hills 
above the harbor. From the sea, as the voyager approaches, Curacoa 
appears like a volcanic fragment, rent from the mainland of South 
America, or tossed up from beneath the waves. Its coast is every- 
where rugged, with deep fissures, as harbors, leading to extensive in- 
land lagoons. The hills are not high, but abruptly broken off and 
sharply cleft. It would seem that the island is one vast deposit of 
phosphate of lime, that there are mountains of it, for more phosphate 
is mined here than the markets will carry. The highest hill on the 
coast that the arriving steamer skirts — a hill that might well be digni- 
fied by the name of mountain — consists of ninety-seven per cent of 
phosphate. Fortunes have been realized here, and fortunes yet await 
the owners of this vast deposit. The works of the mining company form 



54 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON. THE SPANISH MAIN. 

a little settlement isolated from the others of the island, and the 
treasure they guard is jealously kept from the view of prying visitors. 
Traditions are afloat of the strange doings of the company in posses- 
sion of Curacoa's only treasure trove, — that no one can penetrate the 
charmed circle they have drawn about their wealth ; that the visitor is 
hospitably received and royally entertained, the finest fruits and meats 
and choicest wines being set before him, but that no blandishment can 
open the inner portal. It is a question whether or not all these pre- 
cautions be necessary, but the company is said to pay the Dutch Gov- 
ernment over two hundred thousand dollars each, and every year the 
mines are worked. Phosphate was first found here by a poor Cornish 
miner, who first secured the refusal of this otherwise waste land, the 
Dutch being ignorant of any value attached to it, and then leaped 
suddenly into affluence. 

As we sail the southern shore of the island, a bright lagoon opens 
out to view below the phosphate region, called the Spanish Water, 
and a castle of Spanish times commands it from a beetling cliff. 
Spanish possession of Curacoa extended from 1499 to 1634. The 
Dutch then acquired it, and have held it ever since, except for a few 
years' occupation by the English. And to-day, though Spanish in 
nearly everything save its government and its architecture, Curacoa 
still pertains to the people who wrested it from the marauding 
Spaniards. The barren hills that form the backbone of the island 
are rent apart at about its centre, and give ingress into the safest 
and most securely land-locked harbor in these seas, perhaps in the 
world. It is so narrow that the sentries of the two forts guarding 
it, one each side the entrance, can hail each other from their respec- 
tive stations. One of these forts is called Fort Riff, and the other 
Fort Amsterdam. They are old, and their cannon are obsolete, while 
their garrisons of funny Dutch soldiers are enough to make a mummy 
smile. The inlet is deep and straight, and heads into a capacious 
harbor, of perhaps half a mile in length, beyond which is a great 



CURAQOA,—A LITTLE DUTCH PARADISE. 



55 



lagoon, called the Schattegat. A pontoon bridge spans the harbor 
just inside the forts, and this has to be opened, of course, every time 
a vessel of any kind seeks entrance. As our steamer draws opposite 




WATER FRONT, INNER HARBOR, CURACOA. 



the inlet, she whistles 
warningly, and in a 
moment there comes back to us 
an answering whistle in a mi- 
nor key. Then, as the pilot 
takes the wheel, and the bow is pointed toward the lagoon, we see one 
end of the bridge slowly crawling toward the opposite side of the 
harbor, its propelling force being a very diminutive steam-launch. 
The strip of blue water grows wider and wider, and at last, when the 
bridge of boats lies parallel with the shore, the little steam-launch 
toots again, and it is safe to enter. The steamer sails superbly in, 
giving us views of forts and houses so close that we could toss a bis- 
cuit into them, standing on the deck. Once inside, the bridge is 
swung back into position, and the interrupted traffic between the 
opposite sides resumes its placid flow. 



56 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



The lagoon, of which the harbor proper forms a part, consists of 
three sections, like a clover-leaf. There are two lagoons lying parallel 
to the shore, with a coral strand only separating them from the ocean, 
and the stem and central leaf pushing straight into the island. It is 

about the centre and the right-hand 
clover-leaves that the town is built. 
The finest houses line the main har- 
bor, and they are eminently respect- 
able as well as picturesque. As I 
have said, the architecture is Dutch, 
only modified to suit the exigencies 
of a tropical climate. Nowhere in 
the West Indies will you find such 
substantial, such comfortable houses. 
They are as solidly buil.t as any struc- 
ture along the Zuyder Zee, with stone 
and mortar walls, bricked courtyards, 
and tiled roofs. They are exceeding 
quaint, even to the height of pictu- 
resqueness, and so suggestive of com- 
fort and homelike attractions that 
many a Spanish-American sighs and 
shivers when he recalls the barren, 
cheerless casas of the Latin peoples 
on the Main. The windows are broad and open, with glass instead of 
gratings, though balconies and corridors are shielded by green jalozi- 
sies. Aside from their shapes and contours, these houses attract by 
their rich and various colors. The tiles that cover their roofs are red, 
their walls are yellow and pink, picked out with colors that please and 
harmonize. As seen from the sea or from the cactus-covered hills that 
rise inland, a prettier picture than this little Dutch paradise would be 
difficult to present. The town or city of Wilhelmstadt is divided into 




A WELL-TO-DO NEGRO. 



CURAQOA, — A LITTLE DUTCH PARADISE. 57 

Pietermaay and Schardo, on the right of the harbor as you enter, 
while the " other side " is literally rendered in the name Otrabanda. 
In these names we see the curious mingling of Dutch and Spanish 
that forms the prevailing speech of the island, called Papiamento. 
Two or three of the streets are quite broad ; all are well paved ; and 
indeed the roads throughout the island are very nearly perfect. 
Most interesting, however,- are the narrow lanes that intersect 
Pietermaay, where the sun only reaches the pavements at midday, 
where the balconies on either side nearly meet, and where the evil 
odors that prevail are most startling in their strength and variety. 
Here you may see the offspring of African, Africo-Dutch, Africo- 
Hispano, Dutch, etc., sporting themselves in the unadorned garb of 
Eden. This is a costume in great favor with all the juvenile por- 
tion of the population, up to the age of eight or ten, without 
regard to sex. It is always of the same cut, but there is infinite 
variety of color. 

Says the ancient historian, Hakluyt : " One of the marueylous 
things that God useth in the composition of man is colour; and 
doubtlesse cannot bie considered without great admiration, in hold- 
ing one to be white, and another blacke, being colours utterly con- 
trary ; some likewise to be yellow, which is between blacke and white, 
and other of other colours, as it were of diuers liveries, and as 
these colours are to be marveled at, even so is it to be consid- 
ered howe they differ one from another, as it were by degrees, 
forasmuch as some men are white, often diuers sorts of white- 
nesse ; yellowe, often diuers sortes of yellow, and blacke, after diuers 
sortes of blacknesse, and howe from white they goe to yellowe 
by discolouring to browne and redde, and to blacke by ashy colour, 
and murry, somewhat lighter than blacke, and tauny, like unto the 
West Indians, whiche are altogether in generall either purple or 
tauny like unto sodd Quinces, or of the colour of chesnuttes or 
olines, which color is to them natural, and not by their going naked. 



53 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



as many haue thought; albeit their nakednesse have somewhat 
helped thereto." 

The old historian reasoned well : " Color is to them natural, 
and not by their going naked ; " and this is proven by the fact 
that the little Dutch youngsters who toddle about are naked as 
Adam before the fig-leaf was invented, and retain in later years the 
flaxen hair and pink and white complexions. " It is to them 
natural " also to speak the barbarous dialect of the island, called 
Papiamento, — a patois more barbarous than any I have heard any- 
where else in the West Indies. The Papiamento is structurally 

Spanish, with an intrusion 
of Dutch, a little English 
and African, moulded in the 
mouths of ignorant negroes. 
For instance : One day I 
was out hunting with a na- 
tive of the island and asked, 
among other things, the 
name of a pretty plant. 
He answered : " Eso se llama 
Barba de Yoong Man " 
(" They call that Young 
Man's Beard"). It was, by the way, well named, the flower having 
a soft silken fringe, reminding one of the pubescent adornment 
of a young man's chin, of which he is at first so proud and 
afterward so ashamed. Papiamento is a comparatively recent in- 
vention ; that is, it came into use a long time after the confu- 
sion of Babel. It has nothing to do with Hebrew, Greek, Sanscrit, 
or with Latin, except through the Spanish. It is, of course, ex- 
tremely difficult to construct a grammar of patois; to seize the 
fleeting, subtle forms that emanate from the brain of primitive 
people, and mould them into permanent shape. From the very 




DIVING FOR COINS. 



CURAQOA. — A LITTLE DUTCH PARADISE. 



59 



nature of the dialect, spoken as it is by people unable to read 
or write, it must ever remain plastic, as it were. Yet the Papia- 
mento has been somewhat crystallized, and a grammar has been 
published, so that the phi- 
lologist may now study 
at least one language in 
its nascent state ; that is, 
if we admit this hybrid 
to the dignity of a " lan- 
guage." Any one speak- 
ing Spanish may easily 
understand Papiamento ; 
but it is detrimental to 
his Castilian in a high 
degree. Years ago I 
found that those who 
spoke the French patois 
in the Caribbees could 
not speak but with effort 
the Parisian ; more than 
this, even, that good 
French scholars soon sac- 
rificed their purity of 
speech to the demands of 
the virile patois. Let me 
instance some differences 
between the Castilian 
and the Papiamento, for 
the numerals. The Span- 
ish uns is un ; dos and ires are the same ; cuatro is cuater; cinco is 
cincu ; sets, the same ; stele is chete ; ocho, naire, and diez are un- 
changed, but once is yesun, doce is yesdos, trece is yestres, etc. But 




THE VEGETATION HAS A TROPICAL CAST. 



60 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

enough has been given to show the Spanish character of the Papia- 
mento, and yet its distinctiveness as a dialect. All speech not un- 
derstood seems gibberish, and these Curaconians confuse us with 
their jargon. Fortunately, most of the business men speak Eng- 
lish, and the only persons we are in a measure dependent upon 
are the negro boatmen who compete with the bridge between the 
opposite towns. There are, it is said, one hundred and fifty of 
them. Their charge for ferriage is only five coppers, Dutch, equal 
to about two cents, American ; but they are said to be unable 
to make change (when it is to their advantage not to), and get 
many a silver piece they would otherwise lose. The toll on the 
bridge is two Dutch cents, for " quality " people ; but if you go 
barefoot, the charge is but one cent. This bridge, by the way, 
was built and is owned by a Yankee from Maine, the American 
consul, Captain Smith. This enterprising gentleman also owns the 
only ice-houses that are replenished with crystal Kennebec, brought 
in American schooners to this land of heat and sunshine. Cap- 
tain Smith has lived here for I don't know how many years ; he came 
here an invalid, but is now a witness to the all-healing climatic 
properties of Curacoa. The residents claim that their island is 
singularly exempt from disease ; and certainly there seemed to 
be none, except universal poverty. Many years ago the negro 
slaves were freed, and since then they have had to shift for them- 
selves, so that labor now is very cheap, barely supplying these 
simple folk with food and raiment. The slave owners received 
eighty dollars for every emancipated slave about twenty-seven years 
ago, but the value of these erstwhile bondsmen has depreciated, 
and doubtless you could buy one for half that money, if you would 
only stipulate to find him in food and clothing. An English 
shilling per day is a fair average wage earned by laborers, while 
skilled labor does not receive much more than double that amount. 
A master mason or carpenter receives but sixty cents per day; 



CURAQOA,—A LITTLE DUTCH PARADISE. 6 1 

yet there are no troublesome strikes, for the laborers know — if 
they know anything — they would be futile. The fact is there 
are more negroes than the island can care for, more even than 
it can feed. 

All the steamers of the great " Red D " Line, which make the 
Island of Curacoa their rendezvous, rely upon the natives to load their 
ships, and even ship them as -common sailors for their voyages. They 
are honest and faithful, and work for less than the laborers of the 
Venezuelan mainland. On the arrival of every steamer a crew of 
Curacoa laborers is taken aboard for service throughout the round 
trip to Venezuela, via the ports of Puerto Cabello and La Guayra. 
There may be about twenty thousand negroes and " colored " people 
on this island. The land is poor, mainly sterile, even bananas and 
plantains having to be brought from the mainland to be found in the 
market in quantities. The phosphatic hills are rich in the elements 
of fertility for other and distant lands, but are not capable them- 
selves of producing a crop of cane or corn. The valleys of compara- 
tively fertile land are too few to be considered, and the poor laborer is 
even worse off than he of Barbadoes, where the land is rich, though 
devoted almost exclusively to sugar-cane. The vegetation, such as it 
is, has a tropical cast, and in the gardens you will find all the members 
of the citrus family, pineapples, paw-paws, custard apples, soursops, 
mangoes, guavas, casbera-apples, and many other fruits and vegetables. 
The island is celebrated for its nisperos, or sapadillos. The sapa- 
dillo is rarely seen in the north, never found in our market, and is 
only brought to us by the officers of the steamers running to the West 
Indies. It requires careful handling, will not keep well, and has a 
flavor that requires an acquired taste to appreciate it. It resembles 
somewhat a russet apple, and has a taste, many declare, like a rotten 
pear. The tree grows vigorously in the stony soil of Curacoa, its 
green bulk resembling the mango, and- is a refreshing sight against the 
dry and blistered hills. There are no streams at all, either above 



62 THE KXOCKABOUT CLUB OX THE SPAXISH MAIN. 

ground or below, and the people depend upon the heavens for their 
supply of water, storing it up in great cisterns and doling it out care- 
fully. Sometimes, they say, they have no rain for years, and again 
they will have months of pluvial discharges, so that the greatest 
wisdom must be exercised in its distribution. The fields and hills are 
dry, covered with cactus and prickly pear, but they have a beauty of 
their own. There is a comfortable, inviting look about them that 
(unless you stick a prickly-pear spine into your shin) entices you to 
wander abroad. 

A party of us one day set out on a hunting expedition to a distant 
plantation. We rowed up the lagoon some miles, and landed at a 
wharf on a mangrove-fringed shore, where the herons perched, the 
lizards and iguanas basked in the sun, and the fiddler-crabs crawled by 
thousands over the mud. This great lagoon is called the Schattegat, 
and is deep enough and large enough to float the entire Dutch navy. 
It is completely land-locked, and is protected by a most picturesque 
fortress, perched on a cliff, and used now as a signal station. Behind 
this towering cliff the pirates of the Spanish Main used to lie in wait 
for their prey, their masters watching from the rock, their masts com- 
pletely hidden from sight. Through the narrow passage to the sea 
they used to slip out warily, spread their sails, and bear down upon the 
richly freighted galleons bound with treasure to Spain. Many a ship's 
crew has been murdered within sight of these gray cliffs, and many a 
million of treasure here divided. Pirates and buccaneers have long 
,since passed into the unknown, and the blue waters of the peaceful 
lagoon are rarely vexed by any keel whatever, of any size. We had a 
delightful tramp that day over the old plantation, but the only "game " 
consisted in ground and turtle doves, wild rabbits, troupials, curlew, 
herons and humming-birds. The little green-crested hummers flitted 
from acacia to cactus, and lit up the dark green nisperos ; the turtle- 
doves cooed innocently ; the golden troupials flashed by on shining- 
wings ; and the shade of the ccibas, or silk-cottons, was most refresh- 



CURAQOA,—A LITTLE DUTCH PARADISE. 6 



o 



ing. With water only, and plenty of it, this little parched island 
might be made a perfect garden of delights, for its climate is perfect. 

I fear I have not made out this tropical island to be the happy 
haven of rest I myself have found it ; but I describe it as it appears, 
without exaggeration of its merits or defects. Perhaps its charm lies 
in the climate, the air is so cool in the morning, though so hot at 
noon, but delicious and refreshing at evening-time. There is here a 
perpetual invitation to rest, and the twenty-seven thousand composing 
its population have not disregarded it. The government, as I have 
said, is Dutch, paternal and beneficent in so far as it can be; and one 
should visit the old fortress church, the fort, and the government build- 
ing, to see specimens of Holland architecture modified to suit climatic 
conditions. This is a free port, Curacoa. The shops are many, and 
the goods are cheap. Most of the business seems to be in the hands 
of the Jews, although the Dutch hold the wholesale trade. There is an 
immense libreria, or bookstore, here, — that of Bitancourt, whose prin- 
cipal trade is in Venezuela. Communication is maintained between 
various parts of the island by means of excellent roads, and around 
the lagoon of Schearlo runs a tramway. I may be accused of adopt- 
ing an English term instead of an American, in calling this a tramway, 
and not a horse-car line. But the truth is the car is drawn by a 
donkey. The car itself is not over large, and perhaps nine people 
can secure transportation at one and the same time ; while the donkey 
is hardly as big as a billy-goat. It may not always be the same 
donkey that draws it, but if it is not, there is a strong family resem- 
blance, especially as to size. One day a party of three ladies went on 
shore from a newly arrived steamer, and seeing the car standing there, 
boarded it. As it was rear end on, they did not see the donkey, and 
when it began to move they were filled with wonder. They made the 
trip around the lagoon and back, alighted, and went aboard the 
steamer delighted. " How lovely it was ! And what a charming ride 
that was on the electric car ! " 



64 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

" And all de time," said the old Dutchman who told me the story, 
" der was a man on der vront seat, und dey did n't see der yackass ! " 

The " sights " of Curacoa are peculiarly West Indian, and the 
people, especially the blacks, objects of never-ceasing interest. Every- 
where, squatted against the walls along the streets, one sees groups of 
aged negresses and young girls, their rags scarce hiding their skins, 
keeping guard over small heaps of fruits and vegetables. Exceeding 
the market-women in interest, the washerwomen attract the first atten- 
tion of the stranger. They board the steamer (when the officers will 
let them) and solicit the linen of passengers; but woe to him who 
intrusts his garments to their care ! Before you decide to do this, 
walk over to the beach and look at the spectacle of half-naked 
washerwomen lining the shore, dipping the clothing in the sea and 
mauling it with a club ! After they have worried the life out of a 
garment, — a shirt, for instance, — smashed all the buttons off and 
punched it full of holes, they spread it out on a cactus-bush to dry, or 
fasten it down on a rock with jagged fragments of coral. Witnessing 
such a sight makes the average man unhappy ; and it is small wonder 
that many of the natives seek to drown their sorrows in the flowing 
bowl. Their favorite tipple is that delicious drink bearing the name 
of the island, Curacoa, which is made in Holland, but receives its 
flavor from a peculiar orange peel exported hence to the land of dikes. 
Gin also, being very cheap, about thirty cents a bottle, is much ap- 
proved. And so, revelling in the luxuries a free port invites to 
their doors, blest with a delightful climate, secure in their environment 
of sea, and imbibing the golden nectar of the gods, these exotic Dutch- 
men abide in perfect peace and contentment. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE MYSTERIOUS CONTINENT. 

From Curacoa to Puerto Cabello. — Castle of the Liberator. — Burial-Place 
of Drake. — Coco-palms and Tropic-Trees. — Photographing the Natives. — 
How we frightened a Negro Boy. 









CALL it mysterious, for South America yet contains 
vast regions unexplored, rivers whose windings have 
never been traced, and mountain valleys never yet 
seen by white men. Let us imagine ourselves, then, 
entering the harbor of Puerto Cabello on a cool 
May morning, the purple mountains half hidden in 
mist, the white-walled city lying quiet as a churchyard, without a 
breeze to sway the long leaves of the palms, whose green crowns rise 
above the roofs. But as we round the island castle that guards the 
harbor mouth, a gun booms out a welcome, and as by magic, the city 
is astir. People move early here in the tropics. 

A short gun-shot away rose a square old fortress, of gray and 
yellow stone, low and massive, with crenellated parapet and ornate, 
bell-top sentry-boxes ; a survival of buccaneer times, this gray old 
Spaniard, when Morgan and Drake and pirates from Curacoa 
pounced upon the Main. A guard of dirty ^and dismal soldiers while 
away their time within its walls, and parade the narrow limits of their 
island. They are brown and black, and their tattered uniforms pro- 
claim their miserable condition. In the morning early they come 
out and fire a gun, and spend a great portion of their waking hours in 

5 



66 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



blowing horns and bugles, showing that they have some energy, even 
if confined inactive within the narrow compass of a fort. 

A few hundred yards away rises a square, four-storied lighthouse, 
on a narrow island by itself with apparently only just space enough 




BOLIVAR. 



for foundation-stones between the lagoon and the sea, the waves of 
which can be seen above the beach ; and their roar can be heard 
throughout the day. This lighthouse mounts a flash-light, red and 
white alternate, visible ten or fifteen miles at sea. The old fort guards 
effectively the narrow entrance to the harbor of Puerto Cabello, and 



THE MYSTERIOUS CONTINENT. 



67 



is now known as el Castillo del Libertador, — Castle of the Liberator; 
for we are now in Venezuela, land of the Liberator, the great and only 
Bolivar. Between us and the lighthouse, on a shoal of the Castle 
Island, lies the hull of a 
steamer, its machinery stick- 
ing up suggestively above 
the water, — an old blockade- 
runner, with a history, dur- 
ing our late war between 
North and South. Farther 
up the lagoon a great " mucl- 
digger" is moored, an ex- 
pensive purchase by one of 
the numerous " Govern- 
ments " of Venezuela, and 
which was intended to 
dredge the harbor, but 
which, beyond a merely pre- 
liminary exhibition, never 
scooped a shovelful. A lit- 
tle beyond, a great iron 
steamer lies inactive, rusting 
to pieces at her moorings. 
The Government paid ten 
thousand dollars to have her 
taken away from one of the 
revolutionary generals a few 

years ago. The " general " himself is now commander-in-chief of Ven- 
ezuela's forces ; but the gallant tar who saved her to the Government 
still whistles for his reward. 

High hills rise behind Puerto Cabello, clothed in green to their 
crests, and guard a broad plain between their bases and the sea, and 




AN INDIAN PORTER. 



68 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



here the city itself is built. The streets are straight, some broad, 
some narrow, with several plazuelas here and there, planted with palms 
and tropical shrubs. The plaza-park occupies a point of land just 
astern our steamer and opposite the castle. Between park and castle 

is the channel, narrow but 
deep, giving entrance to the 
finest harbor on this coast. 

The great lagoon be- 
yond is crowded along its 
shores with mangroves, isles, 
and islets, among which 
there should be excellent 
shooting, unless appear- 
ances deceive. I have a gun 
aboard, but as yet have not 
taken it from its case, and 
am reserving it for use in 
Lake Maracaibo. Of birds 
generally considered gamey 
I have seen very few thus 
far ; only pelicans, herons, 
gulls, and terns, aside from 
the numerous song and plu- 
mage birds met with in the 
plazas and gardens. 
The parque, with its contiguity to the sea, and swept by cool 
breezes all day long, is an extremely attractive spot. Tall palms, 
called here jaguaranas, probably oleracias, rise above and guard the 
gates, and encircle a fantastic fountain in the centre. Many of the 
great gray stems of these palms are perforated, — holes from half an 
inch to two inches in diameter, — which remind us of one of the revo- 
lutions that took place here. Crowds of people were gathered here 




A SPANISH GIRL, 



THE MYSTERIOUS CONTINENT. 69 

and were fired into by the fort opposite, and many slaughtered. 
These holes in the palm-trunks are yearly growing larger, and may 
eventually cause the destruction of these glorious trees. 

To mention the other plants and trees of this pleasure garden 
would be to enumerate a goodly portion of the flora of the tropics. 

I sat down one afternoon beneath the shade of a sapote-tree, and 
watched the birds playing in the shrubbery, while I amused myself 
trying to call them about me, as I used to do in the Antilles. They 
were nearly all strange to me ; but I think I recognized a little " hum- 
mer," that buzzed about a bush with great red flowers, as the green- 
throated humming-bird of the West Indies. In the palms, crying 
noisily among the spathes covering the flower-clusters, was a species 
of fly-catcher very much resembling a new one I discovered in 
Dominica thirteen years ago, called by the natives there the " sunset- 
bird, 1 ' and named by Professor Lawrence the Myiarchus Oberi in 
honor of its discoverer. The one in the palm-tree, the little boys in 
the garden told me, was known as Tio Juan, or Uncle John. 

I have often wondered whether I did science a service or no, in 
bringing to the ornithological lights the twenty and more new birds 
I discovered in the West Indies. Since the beginning of creation, 
perhaps, at least since these islands rose from the wave and were 
blessed with bird-life, these birds had existed unknown save to the 
native negroes and Indians, and by them only half recognized by cry 
or flight. Civilized man first made their acquaintance through my 
introduction, and that was only brought about by searching out and 
killing the birds ; for one can rarely tell to a certainty when he holds 
a new species in his hand. The animal must be skinned and stuffed, 
must be measured, and his life-colors, cries, and habits noted ; then its 
skin is sent to the museum, where it is compared with others there 
collected, and with all known species ; and perhaps it must even be 
sent to Europe to be compared with others. 

One humming-bird that I sent to our museum at Washington 



JO THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

made two voyages across the Atlantic before its identity was deter- 
mined. There exists a class of " closet naturalists," — men who know 
nothing of field or forest, but who spend their lives in examining dead 
and dried specimens of animated nature. They have perhaps their 
use ; but they do a great deal of damage and prolong the quarrels that 
are constantly going on between real naturalists over the classification 
of bird and beast. What constitutes a species ? It is, I think, a 
question not yet determined, — one class being prone to make a 
species out of a mere variety, and another insisting upon reducing the 
number already existing. 

But I did not intend to wander into those fascinating fields again, 
where I passed so many months of my youth. Already, I fear, they 
have consumed too much of my life. To come back to Puerto Ca- 
bello and its plazas. I often queried what was the signification of this 
strange name : Puerto Cabello, — the " Port of the Hair." But the 
other day one of our vice-consuls here explained that it was a per- 
petual boast of its excellence ; a vessel might be moored here by a 
hair, and not break away from her moorings. 

Off the castle, our mate tells us, lies anchored that redoubtable 
pirate of England, Sir Francis Drake ; at least it is said that he was 
buried here, so many leagues off the Castle of Puerto Cabello, 1 and so 
many fathoms deep. This was the great " stamping-ground " of the 
late Sir Francis ; and perhaps the enormous old cannon in Caracas 
were a pair of the very pieces used against him when he stormed 
La Guayra. 

The last voyage of Drake was made in company with the scarcely 
less celebrated Sir John Hawkins. It was most unfortunate to all 
concerned. Hawkins died off the eastern end of Puerto Rico. Not 
long after, Drake died and was buried at sea off Puerto Bello, in a 
leaden coffin. 

1 We think the mate mistaken, and that Drake was buried off Puerto Bello, not off Puerto 
Cabello. 



THE MYSTERIOUS CONTINENT. 



71 



The following lines perpetuate this event : — 

" Where Drake first found, there last he lost his name, 
And for a tomb left nothing but his fame. 
His body 's buried under some great wave. 
The sea that was his glory is his grave ; 
On whom an epitaph none now can make ; 
For who can say, 'Here lies Sir Francis Drake ' ? " 

Here forts, castles, cannon, habitations, all carry us back to the 
times of Drake and Raleigh ; and if it were not for the enterprising 




THE LAST VOYAGE OF DRAKE. 



North, Venezuela might perhaps still be dreaming of times when 
Charles the Fifth first inscribed plus ultra upon his arms. Only 
yesterday I saw a doubloon of Charles the Third, bearing date 1791. 



72 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



Gold is not so scarce here as it is in Spain to-day. I remember how 
eagerly a certain old antiquarian in Granada seized upon a gold-piece 
I had, and refused to give it up again when I wanted it back. Once 
was the time that the golden flood poured into Spain from the 

Americas, from Mexico, 
the West Indies, and 
Peru. But where is it 
now ? Where are the 
pearls that Cubagua and 
the Spanish Main sent to 
Spain ? Long years since, 
the tide turned the other 
way, and the treasures of 
the Occident have been 
brought back from the 
East, though in a shape 
different from that in 
which they went out. 
Montezuma's and the In- 
cas' treasures excited un- 
bounded wonder. They 
were the accumulation of centuries, those vessels of gold, wheels, 
suns, and golden gods. Not so much has been found since, though 
doubtless there are mines untouched and river-sands unwashed that 
will yet yield gold. 

The houses here are all in the Oriental style ; that is, of southern 
vSpain, — low, square, massive, all built of stone, with flat roofs and 
enclosed patios. There are few here of more than one story, and the 
active city is hidden from the steamer's deck by the custom-house, 
that towers above all else. This custom-house is said to be due to 
the enterprise of an American, our consul here. In truth, almost all 
works of any magnitude are the product of foreign capital, and are 




AN INCA. 



THE MYSTERIOUS CONTINENT. J$ 

of foreign inception. As in Mexico, the English and Americans have 
kindly provided the people with railroads to all important points, so 
here English and Americans are working the great enterprises that 
give these people quick communication between important points, 
secure harbors and connection with foreign ports. Of these I 
shall write more particularly after I have had opportunity for ex- 
amination and comparison. 

A certain writer on Algiers has declared that no two Orientals 
will walk down a street side by side, unless the colors of their cos- 
tumes harmonize, — color and contrasts of colors being felt every- 
where. As to costume, the people here seem to have little regard for 
their appearance, with reference to harmony of colors ; but as to their 
dwellings, they make them most attractive. Instead of whitewashing 
these massive walls and making them glaring white, as the Ber- 
mudians do with their houses, making them look like surface- 
croppings of coral rock, these South Americans give them a great 
variety of pleasing colors. Blue, pink, and yellow predominate ; and 
the combined effect, though not premeditated, is fine. Cover these 
walls with tiles, curving over one another in undulating lines, and of 
richest browns and terra-cottas, with a background of deep-green 
hills ; over all a sky of clearest blue, — and there is harmony in color 
that would satisfy the soul of an artist hard to please. 

I cannot learn that Puerto Cabello has ever suffered from earth- 
quakes, nor been often devastated by hurricanes ; but the houses 
crouch low upon the ground, as though fearful of some elemental 
convulsion. 

In such a country as this — indeed, in any country whatever — 
we always find the lower classes the most picturesque, both in habit 
and habitation. Their surroundings also are in keeping with their 
immediate environment, for they always occupy the outlying districts 
where gardens bloom fruitfully and coco-palms wave invitingly their 
golden leaves. Such are the suburbs of Puerto Cabello. The city 



74 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



itself may be half a mile across ; solidly built, from sea-wall to lagoon, 
where the water penetrates to the streets, and boats and bridges are 
as necessary as sidewalks. One little island here is occupied by a 
shanty and its scant soil covered by a garden, apparently a summer 




CHURCH AND STREET IN PUERTO CABELLO. 



resort, and this insular possession is called La Isla Misteriosa, — the 
Mysterious Island. But the attractive portion of the city lies hidden 
among the coco-palms. 

The palm groves can be seen from the steamer's deck, filling the 
valley between the city and the hills, and bordering the sea-beach for 
miles and miles. How the coco-palm clings to the sea! It never 
strays far away from the sea-beach, never leaves the sound of the sea- 
waves behind, — the waves that first brought the coco-nut to these 
shores. Other palms replace it in the hills and mountains ; but if 



THE MYSTERIOUS CONTINENT. 75 

you are coming to the coast from a point far inland, you may be sure 
of the end of your journey being near when you- first see the coco- 
palm. 

They say in the islands that the coco-palm ministers to their 
wants in a hundred different ways. Speaking of the palm, I found 
once something quite interesting relating to it in an old book pub- 
lished in London, 161 3, called "A Plain Description of the Barmodas, 
now called Summer Islands, with the Manner of their Discouerie." 
It says : " The Head of the Palmito Tree is verie good Meate, either 
raw or sodden ; it yieldeth a Head which weigheth about twentie 
Pounds, and is farre better Meate than any Cabbidge." The author 
was probably writing of the cabbage-palm, though that variety is now 
scarce in Bermuda. 

There are thousands of these coco-palms in the place I have men- 
tioned on the outskirts of Puerto Cabello, tossing their graceful heads 
aloft in wild abandon. They lean lovingly over the lowly huts of 
cane and hang their stems across the roads and lanes. Great clusters 
of coco-nuts hang invitingly just out of reach, — green-gold nuts, half 
shaded by green-gold leaves. 

Here are the gardens of the poor, rich in everything prodigal 
Nature can bestow. The ground is covered with sheets of purple 
flowers and clumps of shrubs bearing white spikes of flowers with a 
fragrance like our " spice-bush." The air is sweet, and the senses are 
delighted, in spite of the filth and squalor of the people who live here. 
Clumps of sugar-cane grow here and there, reminding me, by their 
size, of a story I once heard anent a man of Tobago. He told of 
cane so large in that island that while one man is cutting one down 
with a cutlass, another is stationed a little way off to warn him in case 
it seems likely to fall upon and crush him. The narrator of this yarn 
had a spy-glass so powerful (he said) that he could see through it the 
washerwomen spreading their clothes to dry on the walls of Fort 
Charlotte, St. Vincent, seventy-five miles away. 



7 6 



THE KXOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



It is a fact of history, by the way, that the English name for 
tobacco was derived from that of the island Tobago, where it was first 
found by Englishmen. But to return to our coco-palms. 

Some one, perhaps, may object to 
my spelling of " coco," preferring it 
" cocoa." But I beg to inform any one 
disposed to be critical that " cocoa " is 
wrong. The coco is the coco's nuci- 
fera ; the cacao may be called " cocoa," 
if you like, coming from the Aztec 
(Mexican) word, cacahuatl. Here 
they call it ca-ca-o, and apply the term 
" cocos " to the coco-trees. 

Having photographed the city 
streets and the parks, I hied me out 
one morning to secure some of the 
dwellers in the coco grove. I had 
a companion, and we each had a 
camera. Mine was an old affair 
perched on a tripod, and had done 
good service already. The lens I 
purchased of old Darlot himself in 
Paris, and I know just what it can 
do. My companion had a new-fan- 
gled invention with an outlandish 
name, in the shape of a box filled 
with " films " for sixty photographs. 
He was no photographer, but he went 
according to printed directions, which 
he consulted before every exposure. 
These directions were: (i) To unplug the end of the box; (2) Pull a 
string ; (3) Turn a crank ; (4) Press a button. Also to be careful in 




A NATIVE TRADER. 



THE MYSTERIOUS CONTINENT. 



77 



estimating the distance between the machine and the victim intended 
for sacrifice. It was to be pointed exactly at the centre of the object 
to be photographed, and if said object were small, then the operator 
must crouch a little. Thus armed, — " loaded for bear," as it were, — 
we went hunting for game. A fine group of cocos claimed my atten- 
tion at once, and I pitched my camera at a street-corner, and was 
at once surrounded by a curious crowd. They were curious, but not 
offensive ; and so, finding that these people would take it in good 
part, we proceeded to secure several groups of them. There was one 
hut especially fine in its barbaric completeness, — a hut of reeds, 
wattled and plastered and thatched. . Between the reeds the spaces 
were stuffed with coco-husks. The interior was dark and filthy, with- 
out table or chairs, and a little naked in- 
fant crouched in one corner. Out of sur- 
rounding huts poured the people like flies 
from the bung-hole of an empty molasses 
barrel. There were women clad in che- 
mise and skirt, bearing babies astride their 
hips, — babies stark naked and brown. 
Youngsters of all ages, up to eight or ten, 
stalked about without a rag on them, while 
the older ones wore hardly anything but 
rags. They were rather coy at first ; but 
a few words of explanation from me set all 
right, and they allowed us to include as 
many as we wanted in our grouping. I 

told them, for instance, that we were Americans {Americanos) from 
the North, and that we did not have any coco-palms and beautiful 
houses of palm-leaves, nor such lovely babies, chiquititos, and pretty 
senoritas ; and these simple people believed it all, and said they 
would be glad to let the Norte- Americanos see photographs of all 
these things, since they did not have any of their own. So they laugh- 




INDIAN GIRL. 



yS THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN 

ingly grouped themselves, only begging that they might have a peep 
through the machine after I had taken the photograph. 

The camera, perched on its tripod, they could understand and 
were familiar with, but were afraid of the black box with its omi- 
nous muzzle, carried by my friend. When that was pointed at them 
all the youngsters trembled and cried, while the older ones were 
rather dubious, though I managed to reassure them. Just as we had 
concluded, I spied a better subject coming than any we had taken. 
A little negro black as night, with an old straw hat on his head 
and straw sandals on his feet, came down the path, leading by the 
hand a smaller mite of humanity the hue of mahogany. Both were 
naked, except for the hat and sandals of the older one ; but they 
marched along as grave as judges and apparently as happy. 

I had used up my plates, but I said to my friend, " There is your 
chance ; " and he at once started on the trail. As the little chaps 
were small, he had to crouch (according to direction) ; and when 
those black babies saw the strange man after them, creeping stealth- 
ily and pointing a long black box, as though to shoot, they set up 
a howl, and fled precipitately. The old straw hat fell off; the san- 
dals flew into the air; and the photographer lost his picture. 




CHAPTER VII. 

A JOURNEY INTO THE COFFEE REGION. 

Venezuelan Politicians. — Fireworks by Daylight. — Loading Coffee at Puerto 
Cabello. — A Railroad on Stilts. — The City of Valencia. — From Coast to 
Mountain- Land. — Bread-Fruits and Trumpet-Trees. — What a Wise Indian 
SAfD. — A Rumor of Cannibals. 

|NE night we came over Curacoa, leaving at sunset 
and arriving at sunrise ; going to rest with memories 
of roseate hills and sunset clouds, awaking with a 
vision before us of cloud-capped mountains, green 
hills coming down to the sea and enclosing a city 
curious and quaint Coming up from La Guayra 
the other night, as the distance is short, one boiler only was used, 
and the motion was hardly perceptible. We had a crowd of Spanish- 
Americans, and among them several distinguished Venezuelans, 
attendant upon the last ex-President, Doctor Paulo. To pronounce 
the name of this distinguished gentleman you must make it Pow- 
od-lo, and then the chances are you won't place stress enough' upon 
the oo. We departed amid music and fireworks, and arrived at 
Puerto Cabello with a welcome of music and fireworks. It was 
scarce daylight when we arrived opposite the castle, yet the rockets 
began to ascend and explode, while the band kept up such a din 
that it almost drowned the voice of our captain as he gave his 
orders from the bridge. The channel is narrow, and a big Spanish 



80 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

steamer lay at our berth ; and it required great skill and seamanship 
to put our steamer up to the wharf. Through it all — confusion of 
noises such as tooting of whistles, exploding of rockets, and braying 
of horns — the multitude assembled on the wharf applauded vocifer- 
ously. I scanned the faces carefully, and came to the conclusion 
that it was a good-natured multitude, an easily-led-by-the-nose mul- 
titude, with great respect for a man who could 
hold office a year in this country and leave a 
respectable sum in the treasury. For that is 
what they say Paulo did, a month or two ago, 
when he retired to make way for his successor ; 
but some also assert that the surplus afore- 
mentioned was suddenly reduced, and Paulo's 
pockets as quickly filled. Be that as it may, 
Paulo is not an evil-looking man ; he looks hon- 
est and kindly. He is past middle age, dark 
and cadaverous, dresses plainly, and has an un- 
assuming manner. His wife is also dark, but 
quite large, and the diamonds she wore were the 
envy of all the ladies on board. 

They had their nieces with them, — two plump 
and beautiful brunettes, who played our piano 
with skill, and were the objects of unwearied 
attention from the young men in attendance. 
"the rockets began to How long they continued their promenades on 
ascend." deck that n jght, I cannot tell, for I retired early ; 

but I know that I awoke now and then through the night, and 
heard snatches of music and laughter, and caught glimpses of the 
moon-lit mountains of Venezuela, as we glided over the sea. 

One is struck by the prevailing complexion of the people, so 
generally dark, even swarthy. I noticed this particularly the day be- 
fore as I glanced over the crowd on the wharf. Nearly all (as one man 




A JOURNEY INTO THE COFFEE REGION. 8 1 

put it) were black-and-tan, the only difference being a little more or 
less of one or the other. The Indians have mostly disappeared, but 
they have left their mark, though the Spaniard has more than held 
his own. During the entire day " El Doctor," as he is termed, held 
a levee with the people, oh deck and in the cabin. Although he 
no longer held office, yet people seemed to think he " had the pull," 
and he was constantly besieged. He was going to Curacoa with us for 
his health ; and some of the young ladies with us were also going 
there to attend the famous convent school. After the doctor had 
in a measure satisfied the curiosity of the people, they began to 
depart ; but the rocketeers remained till the last, sending up their 
sticks. The Spaniards and the Spanish-Americans have a great 
inclination for sending off fireworks by daylight. They make very 
good fireworks here, and send them off in good style, but oftener 
make their displays by day than by night, evidently having a 
greater relish for the noise than the illumination. All this occurred, 
or most of it, before six o'clock in the morning ; for the people here 
are " early to bed and early to rise ; " as to whether or no they 
are "healthy, wealthy, and wise," I cannot tell, but do not think 
many of them are. 

The legal hours for labor here are from six to ten o'clock in the 
morning, then a two hours' siesta, and from twelve o'clock, noon, till 
four o'clock in the afternoon. Everything is regulated by the cus- 
toms officials; they charge twenty-five cents an hour for the labor- 
ers, and are said to pay them twenty. This may not be a paternal 
government, but it exercises pretty strong control over the lower 
classes. The officers of the ship have to make their bargains with 
the officials, who undertake to supply the number of men wanted 
and who specify their hours of labor and their employment. This 
operates to make the laborers very saucy and independent, and 
takes their control out of the hands of those most concerned in the 
faithful discharge of their duties. The customs regulations are 

6 



82 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



eccentric ; but there is hardly any impediment placed in the way 
of the traveller. No passport is demanded, and only a superficial 
examination is made of one's luggage. 

As I said, the lading of the ship began at about six o'clock* 
and a din of a different sort began. Great and brawny negroes, 
stripped to the waist, handled the sacks of coffee with great rapidity 

and dexterity. A line was 
constantly passing and re- 
passing, — each one with a 
sack of coffee on his head, 
which he dexterously 
dumped across the rope on 
which the sacks were slung, 
ten at a time, and hoisted 
by the steam-winch into the 
hold. It seemed like a pan- 
demonium of noise and con- 
fusion ; but everything 
moved steadily on, and by 
all nationalities. breakf ast-time, or ten o'clock, 

the great pile of coffee 
sacks was diminished ; and by three o'clock the work was done, the 
negroes and donkeys departed, the wharf was swept off, and the 
late scene of bustle, noise, and strife was quiet, and nobody was 
left there, except a few fireproof darkies slumbering in the sun. 

All this coffee comes from the interior; and until recently it 
was brought down to the coast on the backs of donkeys and mules. 
The plantation, a long way off, of course was at a great disadvantage, 
there beinsr no lon^-and-short haul clause in their contracts with 
the arrieros and donkey drivers. 

A few years ago a railroad was inaugurated, from Puerto Cabello 
into the interior. It was completed in 1888 as far as Valencia, 




A JOURNEY INTO THE COFFEE REGION. 83 

a city of some forty thousand inhabitants, the capital of the State 
of Carabobo. This railroad line is, as far as Valencia, fifty-four 
kilometers (or about thirty-five miles) long. It carried sixty-two 
thousand passengers the first year of its completion. As one of 
the railroads aiming to penetrate this great and mysterious con- 
tinent of South America, which presents a mountain barrier almost 
the entire length of the Caribbean coast, this road deserves exami- 
nation. It was built with English capital, and is owned and run 
by Englishmen ; the rolling-stock is thoroughly English also, and 
presents to the American many obsolescent features that our coun- 
try has long since buried, but to which Johnny Bull still clings 
tenaciously, or else England used these new countries as a sort 
of dumping-ground for her cast-off and antiquated carriages. Let us 
hope, for her sake, the latter. But the road-bed is magnificent, 
and the viaducts just such as we find on that other English road 
running through similar country, in Mexico, from Vera Cruz to the 
capital. 

Over this road in Venezuela come the products of the inte- 
rior, — coffee, cacao, deer and goat skins, hides, cotton, copper, and 
dye-woods, amounting to some five million dollars during the year 
1888. 

This city of Valencia, of which we heard so much, we desired to 
see ; and so we set forth one morning by the train. Consulting the 
history of Venezuela, we found the town to be sufficiently ancient to 
have a suggestion of interest, having been founded so long ago as the 
middle of the sixteenth century, by Alonzo Diaz Moreno. It occu- 
pies a beautiful plain, or elevated valley, mountain-surrounded, with 
temperate climate and within sight of Lake Tacarigua, famous for 
its beautiful shores and islands. Beyond this city, the railroad 
will connect with another line, which is to establish communica- 
tion between Valencia and Caracas. 

A party of us took the train at eight o'clock in the morning, 



84 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

seeking the station in a dirty suburb of Puerto Cabello. The 
fare is two dollars and a half — first-class — for the thirty-five miles. 
Although the railroad station is in a location altogether uninviting, 
yet within a few minutes after pulling out, the train passes through 
the beautiful coco grove which I mentioned before, and thence- 
forward the scenery presents a constant succession of surprises. 
Leaving the vast coco plantation, embowered in which are the 
huts of favored dwellers, we come out upon a long curving beach, 
where the waves tumble heavily upon the sands, and the wind 
whistles through the palm-branches. Taking our departure from 
the coast at this point, our course hence is along the banks of 
a river. 

From the very beginning, this river treats us to the choicest 
bits of Nature's production in the way of tropical and semi-tropical 
scenery. Curving in and out, first on one bank, then on the other, 
the road steadily ascends the steep hills and penetrates a suc- 
cession of valleys, each higher than the other, and each showing 
a slight difference in the vegetation. Along the coast of course 
the coco-palms grow, in thinner and thinner groups, then more 
isolated, until the last one is left behind, growing on the seaward 
side of a hill. Then the bananas and plantains, nisperos and bread- 
fruit. This last has a character of its own, and is distinctive 
even in this tropical wealth of vegetation. The leaves are deeply 
cleft with seven to nine lobes. The fruit is green, spherical, with 
a very rough surface. Under the skin, or rind, we find the pulp, 
or " bread " portion, of the fruit, which nourishes so many people 
here as well as in the islands of Oceanica. A tree resembling 
this at first glance is the trumpet-tree, though it bears no edible 
fruit, and its leaves have silver linings which, like poplar-leaves, 
show bright in every breeze. 

Then came silk-cottons (ceibas) and sand-box-trees. The former 
are now in delicate green leaf, and are not hung with the pods of 



A JOURNEY INTO THE COFFEE REGION. 



85 



silk-cotton, which give these trees their specific name. As to the 
sand-box-trees, their twigs are topped with the round tomato-shaped 
seed-boxes that have such a curious appearance. If collected and 
carefully dried, they make 
fine paper-weights, etc. But 
there is a knack in the dry- 
ing of them that I do not 
understand. I remember 
that I carried some home in 
my trunk at one time, in- 
tending to show them to my 
friends. When I came to 
" overhaul " my trunk, how- 
ever, I found no sand-boxes at 
all, — at which I marvelled 
much, — and only some 
strange seeds I had never 
seen before. It was a long 
time before I discovered 
that the boxes had burst 
and scattered their con- 
tents throughout the trunk. 

The railroad is steep as 
far as a station called Las 
Trincheras ; but beyond this 
the grade is such that a dif- 
ferent engine is substituted 

for the one we started with, which works with a cog or cam in a 
similar manner to the one up Mount Washington, in New Hampshire. 
Only it is claimed that this system is superior, being adapted to 
heavy trains, and having a larger and different kind of engine. 

We run parallel to the old mule road from the coast, and. note 
that the trains of donkeys are not yet discontinued. Now and then 




TROPICAL PLANTS. 



86 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



the river is spanned by a rude semi-suspension bridge, almost as 
primitive as the grape-vine bridges I have seen in South Mexico. 
The hills and mountains rise far above us and hem us in ; but at last 
we burst the barrier and see before us a far-stretching plain. 

Just here, the train is halted, 
while I am given time to photo- 
graph a fine fall of water, called 
Aqua Linda. It drops over a 
cliff, between masses of trees and 
vines, and forms a lovely pool ere 
it runs away to the river. The hills 
and mountains on either side of us 
are gaunt and 'bare, of rich red 
hues. The air is clear and pure, 
and we are now in a temperate 
region, perhaps fifteen hundred 
feet above the sea. Beyond Aqua 
Linda is a station called Naqua- 
naqua, or, as it was explained to 
me, the Two Waters. After a two 
hours' ride, the station of Valencia 
is reached, which, like nearly all 
Spanish and Spanish-American sta- 
tions, is a long way from the cen- 
tre of the city. 
To the surprise of most of our party, we were met here by the 
superintendent and assistant superintendent of the railroad, and the 
chief of the electric plant, — two Englishmen and an American, — 
and during the rest of the day were in their charge. Suffice it to say 
that they cared for us royally, took us all about the city in carriages, 
to every point of interest, and ended with a dinner of the best Valen- 
cia afforded. - The day was Good Friday, so that everybody was in 
holiday attire, and flocking to the church. 




FRUIT-SELLER OF VALENCIA. 




HOUSE OF CIVILIZED INDIANS. 



A JOURNEY INTO THE COFFEE REGION. 89 

We visited, among other places, the waterworks and Calvario, or 
Calvary, the highest point in the city, where it all lay spread out at 
our feet ; and beyond the many-colored houses sparkled the waters of 
the lake. On the highest part of Calvario, Guzman Blanco, with 
becoming modesty, had erected his statue ; but the people pulled it 
down months ago, and not even a fragment remains. 

Were it possible, I should like to describe the unbounded hospi- 
tality of our friends and show my readers what generous deeds some 
men are capable of ; but I confess I cannot. The city is lighted by 
electric lights, the public buildings are fine, and in the principal plaza 
is a beautiful bronze statue of Bolivar. 

The Professor and I, as our readers well know, are very much 
interested in the history of America ; and as it was upon this very 
coast of South America that some of the most notable events took 
place, we cannot let the opportunity pass without reference to them. 
We found a queer old book called, " The General History of the Vast 
Continent and Islands of America, commonly called the West Indies," 
written by Antonio de Herrera three hundred years ago, and trans- 
lated into English in 1740. 

From this very valuable work we shall now and then make 
extracts ; the following is one : — 

" In the other hemisphere [America] there were no dogs, asses, 
sheep, goats, swine, cats, horses, mules, camels, nor elephants. They 
had no orange, lemon, pomegranate, fig, quince, olive, melons, wines 
nor sugar, wheat nor rice. They knew not the use of iron, knew 
nothing of firearms, printing, or learning. Their navigation extended 
not beyond their sight ; their government and politics were barbar- 
ous. Their mountains and vast woods were not habitable. An In- 
dian of good natural parts being asked what was the best they had 
got by the Spaniards, answered : The hen's eggs, as being laid new 
every day; the hen herself must be either boiled or roasted, and does 
not always prove tender, while the egg is good every way. Then he 



90 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

added : The horse and artificial light, because the first carries men 
with ease and bears his burdens, and by means of the latter (the 
Indians having learned to make wax and tallow candles and oil), there- 
fore, they lived some part of the night ! and this lie thought to be the 
most valuable acquisition from the white people." A wise old Indian 
that ! There are many Indians in Venezuela yet in savage state, and 
in the neighboring republic of Colombia there are said to be canni- 
bals. Not long ago reports came down to the coast of a massacre 
and cannibal feast which took place on the. Putumayo, — one of many 
rivers which run from the eastern slope of the Colombian Andes, 
and about which little is known. Rising in the mountainous districts 
of the upper altitudes of Pasto, in the State of Cauca, this river runs 
nearly one thousand miles, receiving in its course the tributary waters 
of more than thirty streams. 

Within the past few years adventurous residents in Pasto have 
endeavored to turn the riches of the river to account. Some time 
ago a young merchant of Barcacoas, named Portes, with some friends, 
established himself on the banks of the Putumayo. They were soon 
visited by a number of Jevenetos Indians, who came ostensibly to 
trade. The Indians were well received and were apparently satisfied, 
but suddenly they attacked and killed the Colombians, and afterward 
cooked and ate them. The Indians had never visited the Putumayo 
before, and no one had ever fallen in with them on the Amazon. 
Other tribes have also made their appearance in different places, and 
it is believed that some more powerful tribes are driving the weaker 
ones from the heart of the unknown forest regions, or that they are 
voluntary emigrants who will murder and plunder whenever oppor- 
tunity offers. Residents on the frontier also suggest that they may 
have been driven from their homes, wherever these may be, by the 
slavers, whose vessels ascended several of the tributaries of the Amazon 
a few years ago in search of slaves and produce. Indians are captured 
on all the interior rivers and carried off to out-of-the-way regions. 




NATURAL TUNNEL ON THE COAST OF VENEZUELA. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LAND OF THE LIBERATOR. 

Sight of South America's Mountains. — A Formidable Line. — A Miserable 
People. — The Violent Sea. — Red and Green Hills. — One Dollar for Land- 
ing, and a Fee for Leaving. — Bolivar's Army. — Poetry by a Consul. — Rev- 
enues and Exports of Venezuela. — A Flock of Fireflies. 

^^^^^OUTH AMERICA, as we first approach it on the 
H^ 3^1 Venezuelan coast, presents a discouraging bulwark 

B^^B^I' °f defence in its mountains, which guard the interior 

^^R^^Ki^& well. Beyond these mountain-barriers it seems im- 
J^^^^^^^M possible to penetrate ; they stand up so high and 
frowning without an apparent opening in their 
serried ranks. Half the night through, in going from Puerto Cabello 
to La Guayra, as we walked the decks we were treated to occasional 
glimpses of misty mountains. It was a glorious night, moonlit and 
clear ; the stars sparkled brightly, and the Southern Cross hung slant- 
wise above the purple mountains, having mysteriously made its ap- 
pearance about nine o'clock in the evening. The sea was smooth ; 
and as the distance between the two ports is only half a nights run, 
we glided along almost imperceptibly, with no motion of the big 
steamer felt except the regular pulsations of the engine. We reached 
La Guayra at daylight ; and as we sought the deck after a refreshing- 
night's sleep, we saw our friends, the mountains, right before us, their 
higher steeps frowning directly upon and overtopping us, as we lay 



94 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

tossing upon the waves. The roadstead is open and exposed, and the 
waves roll in from outside, tossing the steamers and the smaller craft 
about like chips. The distance from Curacoa is a ten hours' run, and 
from Puerto Cabello five or six, going at easy speed. 

Great cloud-masses hang lowering over the mountains, while silver 
cloudlets sport along their sides. Though the heights are green, the 
bases are bare and brown, scarred and gashed. There are no signs of 
habitation above five hundred feet or so, but one of the shoulders of a 
hill is cut out to receive a cosey little fort, upon the stone walls of 
which is a signal station, — a delightful post of observation, command- 
ing a wide sweep of ocean and coastwise view. 

The bull-ring is just below the fort, and immediately beneath, the 
best part of the town, which is here compactly built, but straggles 
along the shore to the right and left. It lies under the steep hills, 
composed of houses of stone and clay. 

A hotter place apparently could not be found anywhere than this 
La Guayra occupies, with the hills behind and above it, and exposed 
to the blaze of the sun three-fourths of the day. Above the narrow 
line of houses along shore, tracks and footpaths zigzag up the hills, 
leading to humble dwellings, mere mud-boxes, perched on the hill- 
sides. They are but earthy excrescences of the hills, as brown and 
sun-baked as the slopes around them. Yet mean and small as these 
huts are, they are swarming with people, — with creatures whom it 
were high honor to call brothers through Adam. I am sure Adam 
did not expect such degeneracy as one sees here on the north coast 
of South America. 

To get ashore at La Guayra costs one dollar. It is the first port 
at which we have touched where there is anything like a desire to 
make money out of visitors ; so that this mild attempt at extortion 
is taken in good part, and is soon forgotten as new scenes claim 
attention. 

It was on a holiday that we arrived at La Guayra, and the regular 



IS 



«JI 1 in- 




LAND OF THE LIBERATOR. 97 

"lighters" were not making their trips to the shore. These great 
boats, built of ironwood and lignum vitas, are said to cost above one 
thousand dollars each; and though they are but clumsy, misshapen 
" gundalous," yet they land their freightage in good condition, and 
their passengers with dry feet. Our boatman was very importunate 
for his fee, and we could hardly avoid paying him the dollar each that 
he demanded. But it was well that we "stood him off," because when 
we reached the custom-house, a ticket was presented to each of us for 
which we had to pay the dollar. 

The customs department regulates the landing and leaving of 
passengers, and no one is allowed to do either here without its 
sanction. My ticket was numbered 9,756, and read as follows: — 



Corporacion del Puerto de la Guayra, 

Pasage 

Con 50 kilos de equipaje 

B 5 . 



We did not have the stipulated fifty kilos of baggage, as we had but 
one trunk between us; and that may have been the reason our lug- 
gage passed through without examination. But these customs officials, 
like their cousins in New York, know well enough when a man intends 
to smuggle, and never go to any unnecessary trouble in searching. 
The landing-fee was demanded ostensibly for the building of the 
breakwater, — a magnificent work which is progressing as fast as the 
rough northerly winds and seas will permit. It is an English conces- 
sion, I believe, and when completed will make this open roadstead a 
tolerably secure place of anchorage. The work proceeds but slowly, 
owing to the heavy seas, and not long ago a great breach was made 
in the wall during a hurricane, when thousands of dollars' worth of 
material was swept away in less than half an hour. It is being built 
of great blocks of concrete, or cement, this cement being enclosed in 

7 



98 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN 

immense sacks, carried out to the end of the pier in lighters, the bot- 
toms of which drop out and deposit the sack in place, after which it is 
left to harden, and the structure is carried out above. 

A picturesque port is this of La Guayra, with its curving shore, 
its stone and adobe houses, and its immediate background of red and 
verdant hills. • To the eye taking in its beautiful contours and bright 
colors from the ship in the bay, it presents an attractive picture. 

Not only did I have to pay for permission to land, but when I took 
leave I had to secure a permit to get away. This cost twenty cents 
for a stamp, and another twenty (a bolivar) for the official who secured 
it for me. This ticket was worded as follows : — 



El Sr. F. A. Ober es pasajero 
por el Vapor Americano, 

Philadelphia. 
La Guayra, May to, 1890. 
pr H. L. Boulton & Co. 



Upon this was affixed a revenue stamp of fifty centimos, and 
also the official stamps of the chief of the custom-house and of 
the chief of police. 

The customs officials were pretty well dressed, and bore them- 
selves with an air of superiority; but the soldiers on guard reminded 
me of a description I once read of Venezuelan patriots of seventy 
years ago : — 

" Bolivar's army wore literally what they could get. Some were to 
be seen in. every corps with Spanish uniforms, either with or without 
broad-brimmed straw hats ; but these few were so far from improving 
the appearance of the line that they made it resemble a rabble, and 
displayed to greater advantage the miserable clothing of their com- 
rades. Many were nearly stark naked ; but the greater part wore 
small ragged blankets and pieces of carpet, with holes cut in them for 



LAND OF THE LIBERATOR. 99 

the head to pass through. Straw hats were in general use, but some 
colonels had partially introduced into their corps a kind of nondescript 
schakos, made of raw cowhide of various colors. The firearms too of 
this devoted army were all old and in very bad condition. Some mus- 
kets were absolutely without , locks, and were apparently carried for 
show, until the fall of a few friends or foes should give v their owners 
an opportunity for exchanging them for more effective weapons. 
Many had only lances or bayonets on poles ; and the Indians were 
armed with bows and arrows." 

Being more or less under the protecting care of the agents of the 
Line, the American passenger does not suffer many annoyances. Of 
course we make the agency our headquarters, when ashore, and go to 
it for information, even on matters having no relevancy to the business 
of the Line. All are treated with courtesy, however, and made to feel 
that there is one spot where the American flag floats not. in vain. In 
a double sense, the American feels the security of home at the office of 
the Line, because here also is the headquarters of the American Consul. 
I found him in an upper apartment overlooking the picturesque/^/^ 
of the old building, a courteous, educated gentleman, willing to give 
information about the country, and anxious to be of service to those 
who approached him in the proper spirit. 

It was a rambling old corridor in which his office was held, with 
bare beams and rafters overhead and great piles of coffee sacks against 
the wall. Everything was dusty and somewhat musty, and the busy 
spider had not neglected such glorious opportunities for connecting 
widely separated rafters with its silken webs. Pigeons cooed on the 
tiles, and smaller birds darted in and out, while the spiders aforemen- 
tioned, some of them of enormous size, kept unacclimated visitors in " a 
state of mind." The Consul has been here some years, and is thor- 
oughly conversant with the things of Venezuela as well as with the 
people who reside here. Perhaps I cannot better convey this senti- 
ment than by making public some verses he wrote upon — 



IOO THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

LA GUAYRA. 

I. 

O tranquil paraiso, nestled near the placid (?) sea, 

La Guayra, mi querida, I must bid adieu to thee ! 

My boat is tossing in the surf ; the twilight settles down ; 

A si fiues, mi despedida, — adios, my dear old town ! 

O gorgeous, cloud-kissed mountains that majestically arise, 
Far up into the azure of the lovely tropic skies, 
Frown never, but forever with the smile of pity greet 
The home of mis recuerdos sweetly sleeping at your feet. 

The restless and resistless olas that with ceaseless roar 
And sheets of white espuma dash upon the rocky shore, 
Beat lightly and break brightly, with thy changeless melody 
On the beautiful orillas of this haven by the sea. 

And thou too, gentle Mother Earth, in moments of unrest, 
Trembling with hollow thunders that re-echo in thy breast, 
In pity spare La Guayra a recurrence of her woes, 
The death and desolation of the terre?noto throes. 

With fondest recollections and with heart sincere and true, 

Guairehos queridisi?nos, receive my last adieu ! 

May God, coil mado muna, ever graciously extend 

To you the favor you have shown to your departing friend ! 

This is very fine, as everybody will surely admit, and the sen- 
timent was undoubtedly received with applause by the Guairenos 
queridisimos, — the most dearly beloved Guayra friends ; and had 
the worthy Consul stopped here, all would have been well, and 
perhaps he might ere this have been secure of a niche in the 
saintly pantheon after his death. But when he once had left 
La Guayra, and was safe aboard the Yankee " Vapor," his lines, 
though not lacking in truth and expression, are strangely at variance 
with the foregoing. In very truth, they convey the impression we 
all received, and may be accepted as authoritative, coming from 
such a source : — 




SUNSET ON THE VENEZUELAN COAST. 



LAND OF THE LIBERATOR. , 1 03 



LA GUAYRA. 
II. 

Adios to thee, La Guayra ! city of the dark-eyed gente, 
Land of mucha calor and of do Ice far niente, 
Home of the wailing burro and the all-abounding flea ; 
Manana y gracias a, Dios I I bid adieu to thee. 

Farewell, ye gloomy casas, mejor dicho prison cells, 
Ye narrow, crooked calles, reeking with assorted smells, 
Ye dirty little coffee-shops and filthy ftulperias, 
Stinking stable, dingy ftatios, and fetid canerias, 

Where beggars ride on horseback, like Spanish cavaliers, 

And vagabonds perambulate like jolly gamboliers, 

Where the lavanderas wash your rofta — when they feel inclined, 

And hotel waiters strut about with shirt hung out behind. 

Good-by, ye Latin greasers ! Su atento servidor, 
Que vaya bien, ftues adios / My boat is on the shore ; 
O dirty people, dirty houses, despicable spot, 
Departing I salute you, in your dirtiness and rot. 

There you have La Guayra, and many another Spanish-American 
city in a nut-shell. Its streets are narrow and dirty, the houses 
old and damp, the people — those you most come in contact with 
— disagreeable and unattractive. Yet even in dirt and squalor 
there is attractiveness, and we should not let minor faults cause 
us to overlook the merits of La Guayra — as a picture seen from 
the sea. 

One would hardly expect our Consul to dismount from his 
Pegasus, when his steed ambles so beautifully amid the palm groves 
and calks; but he does, now and then, and sends to our Gov- 
ernment " reports " abounding in statistics made of the sternest 
stuff. We all know that La Guayra is the chief port of Venezuela, 
from which comes a vast shipment of coffee every year. It is 
said that there is an average annual exportation of coffee amounting 
to twenty-five millions of pounds. 



104 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

The revenues are derived mainly from imports, the natural pro- 
ducts of the country not being subject to export duty. If one 
might believe reports, half the population live on the customs, 
either directly or indirectly. One of our sailors stated the con- 
dition of things very emphatically when he said that all Spaniards 
and Spanish-Americans, as peoples, are robbers, preying upon the 
products of superior intelligence. Like vampires, they suck the 
life-blood out of commerce ; like leeches, they apply themselves 
to every healthy subject that sets foot within their waters. From 
the first dawn of Spanish-American history, these Latin peoples 
who settled Mexico, West Indies, and South America have played 
the part of robbers, pirates, and buccaneers. Gold has been their 
god ; and to procure it they have never hesitated to exterminate 
peaceful people, murdering them in the fields and suffocating them 
in the mines. In a more peaceful way, in recent years, they have 
applied themselves to squeezing the golden eggs out of the geese 
that flocked to their shores. They manufacture next to nothing ; 
they export nothing but the fruits of the soil. An ungrateful 
people possess this bountiful country ; and it is one of the mys- 
teries of a Divine Providence that they have been allowed to 
cumber the earth so long. 

According to the " Statistical Annuary " for 1889, the imports for 
1886-87 amounted to 73,191,880 bolivars. A bolivar has a value 
of about twenty cents ; and the duties amounted to 23,203,459 boli- 
vars, or about one-third of the total cost. In 1887-88 the total 
value of imports was 78,963,288 bolivars, with a total duty of 
29,728,817 bolivars. Of the imports, Great Britain sent the greatest 
amount, equal to 23,510,113 bolivars, and the United States of 
America 19,743,824 bolivars. 

The chief exports in 1887-88, consisting of cotton, cacao, 
( offee, copper, hides, deer and goat skins, divi-divi, timber, dye- 
woods, gold, tonka beans, and sundries, went to the United States, 



LAND OF THE LIBERATOR. 105 

— more than half the grand total, or 45,615,500 bolivars. Of the 
vessels employed in the carrying trade between Venezuela and 
other countries, the United States had the greatest number of 
steamers, and Great Britain the largest number of sailing-vessels. 
The most direct service between Venezuela and the United States 
is by the American Line, six days from La Guayra to New York. 

This city is certainly important in a commercial sense, but far 
from desirable as a place of residence. It has two beautiful suburban 
towns, called Macato and Maiquetia. The former is some four miles 
distant, and there one finds surf-bathing, fresh and salt water baths, 
and good hotels; in fact, there is the germ here of a delightful water- 
ing-place. A railroad runs out there, and coaches can be hired to 
take one to Macato, as well as to the nearer suburb. This latter, 
Maiquetia, is completely embowered in coco-palms, through which 
gleam the white church and the red-roofed houses. 

Through this village, and through the palm grove, runs the rail- 
road that connects La Guayra with Caracas. Its devious course may 
be traced from the ship in the harbor by its trail along the hills. 

We were now in the country of fireflies, the noctilucas, that so as- 
tonished the Spaniards when they first saw them. The old historian 
shares in this astonishment, and this is the way he speaks of them : 
" In Hispaniola they found a sort of Vermin, like great Beetles, some- 
what smaller than Sparrows, having two Stars close by their Eyes, 
and two more under their Wings, which gave so great a Light that 
by it they could Spin, Weave, Write, and Paint ; and the Spaniards 
went by Night to hunt the Utias, or little Rabbits of that Country ; 
and also afishing, carrying those Animals tyed to their great Toes, or 
Thumbs, and they call'd them Locuyos. They took them in the Night, 
with Firebrands, because they made to the Light, and came when call'd 
by their Name; and the Men, stroaking their Faces and Hands with a 
sort of Moisture that is in these Stars, seem'd to be afire." 




CHAPTER IX. 

FROM THE COAST TO CARACAS. 

Sunset Colors. — Palms and Paradise. — Some South American Hotels. — Wash- 
erwomen at the Brook. — Climbing a Coco-Palm. — A Wonderful Railroad. 
— Swarms of Locusts. — What Humboldt wrote. — The Climb to Caracas. 

I A GUAYRA lies on a narrow shelf cut out of the 
hills that here come directly down to the sea. It 
is "bound to be" hot; it swarms with a swarthy 
population ; it is only attractive at a distance. The 
farther away you are, provided you be not too far to 
lose details sufficient for a picture, the more you are 
inclined to like La Guayra. My most beautiful photographs were 
obtained just as we were steaming out of the port, and they were 
some " snap-shots " at great banks of sunset clouds, massed above a 
promontory crowned with palms. Crimson and gold in color, the 
sun only peering through rents in the radiant meshwork, these clouds 
attracted us all to the rail, and kept us there, even though the gong 
had sounded for dinner, and we were hungry to a degree. For nearly 
an hour the sun's influence was observable upon the clouds, that lay 
piled upon one another in fantastic shapes. At last the crimson faded 
to pink, the gold to salmon tints, and the cloud-ranks dispersed them- 
selves over the sky, the flow of which was a lovely robin's-egg blue. 
I took three photographs of this fleeting picture, before the clouds 
had lost their distinctive shapes. Each was a gem, and needs only 



FROM THE COAST TO CARACAS. 



107 



to be carefully copied into a lantern slide, and colored after my de- 
scription by a " lantern artist," to make a vision of tropical splendor, 
when projected by the stereopticon, that even Turner might envy. 
In the last photograph, sweeping my camera more inland, I secured 
a Venezuelan man-of-war, brought out distinctly against the crimson 
background. The low black 
hull, the masts and spars, 
and every rope of the rig- 
ging, are drawn in silhouette 
against this wonderful sky. 
The water is dimpled and 
crinkled, and a path of 
golden glory leads from the 
fortress held by the sun to 
the immediate foreground 
of the picture. The moun- 
tains beyond lay half re- 
vealed, the clouds covering 
their flanks and summits, 
while the ranks of palms 
were lighted with a gleam 
celestial. Beyond these 
palms, where the distance 

was lost in mist of gold, one might well believe the pathway would 
be found to the portals of Paradise, 

For Paradise will surely be found in the tropics, provided poetical 
fancies and the visions of holy men be taken as truth ; they oftener 
paint it as abounding in palms and tropical vegetation than as the 
home of the pine and maple-tree. 

To my mind, the pine is in some respects preferable to the palm ; 
but I should not like my particular Eden to be given over to the one 
or the other. Take it all in all, I prefer the pine-tree, with its sturdy 




" EACH PHOTOGRAPH WAS A GEM. 



108 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

growth, its shining needles, its fragrant breath. And I have enjoyed 
the delights of life in a palm grove; I have swung my hammock be- 
neath its rustling leaves, have watched the bird and insect life that 
plays about its honeyed blossoms, and have drawn the coco-water from 
the ivory-lined cell of the coco-nut. The sun, from each, distils a 
nectar; but the breath of the gods pervades the pine grove in summer- 
time. 

Speaking of palms, the little town beyond La Guayra, Maiquetia, 
is surrounded with them, and they lie dozens deep between it and the 
shore. I did not have time to investigate this grove on my upward 
journey to Caracas, but a day to spare on my return to the ship gave 
me the desired opportunity. I had " spotted " the places worthy to be 
photographed in going up, and when the day came I hastened thither 
with my camera. 

The train from Caracas having been delayed by land-slips, it was 
late in the evening when I reached La Guayra. But I had no. dif- 
ficulty in finding my way to the best hotel, which, by universal con- 
sent, was pronounced to be the Neptune, — El Neptuno. To reach 
it, you require a guide, unless you have been previously directed ; 
and you enter a dingy courtyard, a patio, encumbered with refuse, and 
rank with Venezuelan odors. This was the court into which I was 
guided, but there is a neater entrance on another street. Around 
this patio a rambling structure is built. In our country, the wisdom 
of enlightened architects has pointed out that it is best to first take 
heed to sanitary conveniences. We should consult, first, health and 
safety; second, comfort; third, beauty of location and elaboration. 
But these Spanish-Americans rarely regard health and cleanliness as 
factors. Like the corporal who captured a dozen prisoners, they form 
themselves into a hollow square, and proceed to surround it. The 
patio is the first essential ; having got that, they surround it with 
apartments, which on the first floor open only into this court, which 
again is only open to the sky. There are the store-rooms, the ser- 






FROM THE COAST TO CARACAS. IO9 

vants' quarters, and the stables. Yes, the noble steed and the patient 
jackass occupy the same building with their owner usually, even 
though he may be a millionnaire. The apartments in the second tier 
are used as reception-rooms, dining-hall, and dormitories. The kitchen 
is near by, either on the ground-floor or in the second story. You do 
not need to be told where it is located, for you have only to follow 
vour nose. 

But don't you do it ! Don't allow yourself to look into that 
kitchen as you value your peace of mind and your appetite. Our 
Southern kitchens, with their ebony cooks, grease, and curry, areas, 
sweet-smelling refectories when compared to these. I have inspected 
some of them ; but then I am seasoned by long residence in Mexico 
and the West Indies. Nothing can be more wretched than the 
kitchens, unless it may be their system for sanitation. Sufficient to 
say that you need ask no disagreeable questions, — your nose will 
guide you ! Fortunately for the traveller here, he may have the ship 
he came in as a home, except when in La Guayra or at Caracas. 
With the steamers to fall back to as havens of refuge, the tourist 
willingly endures a few days of discomfort for the sake of what he 
may see and hear. It is no great amount of discomfort after all ; but 
I would only remark that if cleanliness is here considered next to god- 
liness, there is little doubt that these people need missionaries. 

As things go here, El Neptuno was tolerably clean. The bedroom 
was merely a bare box of an apartment, with a wooden table and 
wash-stand, a chair, and a cot-bed with canvas bottom and a strip of 
calico in lieu of a sheet. A cracked pitcher, a grimy wash-bowl, and 
a slop-pail half full of fermenting pineapple parings completed the 
equipment of furniture. I retired in some trepidation, as there was 
merely a grated opening for a window, and the partitions between my 
room and the others adjoining were only just high enough to prevent 
a person from looking over. A well-conditioned burglar might easily 
have scaled it ; and any one so inclined could easily take a shot at me 



no 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



through the grating. These were my reflections as I retired ; but the 
next morning found me safe and whole, yet perfectly willing to vacate 




THE HOTEL PORTAL. 



the apartment. The table at the Neptuno was bountifully spread, 
many courses being served by active waiters. From the balcony 



FROM THE COAST TO CARACAS. Ill 

facing the sea, a very fine view is spread out of the curving shore, the 
city, and the hills beyond. 

As I was emerging into the street, a little black boy accosted me 
in English, wishing to carry my camera for me. Feeling that his re- 
cognition of me as an American savored something of familiarity, I 
answered him in Spanish ; yet fallowed him to take the instrument, and 
took him on the train with me to Maiquetia. He was black as night — 
a night without a star — and saucy as the British-born negro always 
is ; for he came from Jamaica. We wandered through the streets, and 
at last came to a palm avenue, where the coco-palms grew in regular 
ranks, and shaded a path to the sea. At my request, the little black 
fellow climbed the stem of a coco, and hung there while I photographed 
the scene. 

Nearing the shore, we came to a stream where, in the shade of 
the cocos and grape-fruit trees, several washerwomen were washing 
clothes. I wanted to photograph them, but was afraid they would 
resent it ; though when I made known my desire, they were only too 
eager to have their pictures taken. Indeed, they had abandoned their 
picturesque attitudes and occupation and came and stood stiffly in front 
of my camera. There was one graceful maiden who possessed the shape- 
liest form of them all, — a girl of perhaps sixteen, clad only in a loose 
muslin that was drawn up and knotted gracefully over one shoulder. 
One arm and shoulder were bare, and so were her lower limbs, yet she 
walked and splashed about in the brook apparently unconscious of any 
observers with curious eyes. She was a very pretty picture, and noth- 
ing could be more admirable than her air of insouciance as she waded 
through the stream, picked up a fire-brand on the bank, and leaned 
over to light a cigarette. These lavanderas were clubbing the clothes 
vigorously after the manner they have here, making havoc with fine 
linen and garments with buttons. Some were semi-nude, while the 
children were entirely so, disporting themselves in the water with an 
abandon only possible to a child unencumbered by the habiliments of 



112 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN 



civilization. Above us, in the shade of an odoriferous hedge, a fair 
woman was bathing, crouching in the shallow stream and pouring 
water over herself with a calabash. 

As we rambled on through the coco grove, we came upon the 
owner, who assured me that there were so many trees in his cocotal 
that he could not tell their number. One of his laborers was then up 

a tree cutting off coco-nuts. He climbed 
the smooth, straight stem, perhaps sixty 
feet high, to the crown of leaves by the 
aid of a peculiar sling. In the West 
Indies I have seen the little negroes 
walk up a coco-tree by placing a rope 
around them that encircled both them- 
selves and the tree ; but this man had 
a noose around the tree and one foot 
in a loop. Pushing up the noose as he 
advanced, and clinging to the trunk, he 
rapidly climbed up to the coronal of 
leaves arching overhead. Then with 
his cutlass he chopped off great clus- 
ters of nuts, which fell to the ground. 
One of them he sharpened to a point, 
then cut off this point, leaving a hole in 
the shell the size of a cent, and through 
this I drank the refreshing coco-water. 

But I was to describe the ascent of the mountain, by rail, to Ca- 
racas. It is a great work, this scaling of the steep mountain-side, and 
it has been successfully done; but I saw something as I walked along 
the track that day that would have made an American engineer laugh 
outright. As we reached a curve where the railroad crossed the cart- 
road, a freight engine came along, tugging a train of cars heavily laden, 
Perched upon the cowcatcher was a native, with a sack of sand. The 




CLIMBING A COCO-TREE. 



FROM THE COAST TO CARACAS. 115 

native dipped his hand into the sack and scattered the sand along one 
rail, then crawled over to the other side and sprinkled that one. I 
could not at first understand this operation ; but at last it occurred to 
me that he was sanding the track by hand. This illustrates the rather 
slow process of working and the primitive methods of the English en- 
gineer. Imagine a human sand-sprinkler attached to an engine in the 
United States! 

This railway leading from La Guayra to Caracas is twenty-four 
miles long ; yet it connects two places only seven miles apart. But in 
those seven miles it climbs three thousand feet perpendicularly. The 
cars, the track, the engines, the management, are English. The 
coaches are the same as used between Puerto Cabello and Valencia, 
pertaining to a past generation. 

After a great deal of screaming and tooting, our engine pulled us 
out of the station, past the shore, through the shady palm groves of 
Maiquetia, and then the climb began- A wide-sweeping curve carried 
us above the tile-covered houses, and into a ravine, where a river ran 
through beautiful groves. Higher and higher we climbed, steadily 
rising on the incline without a stop till the halfway station was reached, 
at the Zigzag. The speed was about twelve miles an hour ; the time 
between points is two hours and a half ; and the first-class fare is 
$2.50. 

It was a grand and even awe-inspiring journey. From the deck of 
our steamer the track had been pointed out to me, scarring the hills, 
zigzagging along the sides, until lost to sight in the distance. From 
the very start to the finish, there was something to attract and keep the 
attention fixed. First, the beautiful palms of the shore, the wooded 
ravines, the impending cliffs, and steep slopes, green and brown. 
Comparing this road with the similar one in Mexico, I should award 
this the palm, even though there are not the broad plains and the 
snow-covered mountains of the Mexican route. The chief charm of 
this Venezuelan road lies in its immediate uplift from the sea, bringing 



Il6 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

within the compass of vision the purely tropical vegetation of the 
coast, the palm-fringed beaches, the exquisitely graceful contours of 
the coast line, and the broad bosom of the Caribbean with its far- 
distant horizon. For an hour perhaps, we had views of La Guavra 
and glimpses of the coast, the breakwater, "and the ships at anchor 
appearing like toys afloat upon a burnished sea of silver. Winding 
beneath us, as we ascended, we saw the old mule track, — the road be- 
tween the port and Caracas, along which, even to-day, toil trains of 
patient donkeys, and the leather-clad muleteers. Houses were scarce, 
and there were few stations along the line. 

About halfway up, our train was invaded by thousands of locusts 
that swarmed by millions and millions over a certain tract along the 
railroad. They seem confined to this particular section just now, and 
to inflict their presence upon every train-load of passengers that 
passes through ; but Venezuela and the valley of Caracas have often 
suffered severely from their ravages. These locusts are very large, 
bold, and ravenous ; they have even stopped the trains at different 
times by covering the rails with their oily carcasses. 

I should not forget that the great Humboldt came over the road 
between La Guayra and Caracas just ninety years ago. He first 
landed at Cumana, in company with his distinguished friend Bon- 
pland ; and after some months they took a coasting vessel for La 
Guayra, where they landed after many disagreeable misadventures. 
Humboldt's opinion of the climate of this port is not a favorable one : 
" A stagnant air engulfed in a hollow of the mountains in contact 
with a mass of barren rocks acts differently from air equally hot in 
open country/' 

But he is profuse in admiration of the beautiful situation of Ca- 
racas. The great naturalist first slept at Caracas, " in a house on a 
little hill above the village of Maiquetia." I wonder if that house 
still stands on the little hill above that lovely village embowered in its 
golden-green coco-palms. I am no hero worshipper; but I would 



FROM THE COAST TO CARACAS. 117 

have given an hour or two to that little house in which Humboldt 
slept. In the city of Mexico, in a certain calk, you may find the 
house in which Humboldt tarried when he was there, with an inscrip- 
tion to that effect over the doorway. Venezuelans yet relate that 
Humboldt came here ; but more than that I think they do not 
record. 

He too admired the wide-extended horizon that seemed to climb 
higher and higher as we ascended the mountain, until it appeared 
almost as high as the mountain itself. From La Venta, Humboldt 
says, " You discover an horizon of more than twenty-two leagues' 
radius ; the white and barren shore reflects a dazzling mass of light ; 
you see at your feet Cape Blanco, the village of Maiquetia with its 
coco-trees. . . . The road from La Guayra to Caracas is infinitely 
finer than that from Guayaquil to Quito." 

Of the mountain valley the great philosopher and world-famed 
observer writes, " The height of Caracas is but a third of that of 
Mexico, Quito, and Santa Fe de Bogota ; yet amongst all the capitals 
of Spanish America which enjoy a cool and delicious climate in the 
midst of the torrid zone, Caracas stands nearest to the coast." 

About halfway between sea-port and capital the up and down 
trains meet. We could see the down-coming tram a long while be- 
fore it reached us, and we finally drew in at the station together. 
There was a cantina here, a drinking-place, a little shed with open 
front ; and toward this all the male passengers made a violent rush. 
They fairly fought for the privilege of buying flat, sour beer, brandy, 
insipid lemonade, and stale sandwiches. By no means backward in 
securing their drinks and rations were two portly priests, as I can 
show in a snap-photograph I made of the crowd in its mad rush upon 
the cantina. 

Then we crawled on again ; the inner man being satisfied, the 
outer could the more calmly contemplate the beauties around, above, 
and below. The tropical vegetation is out of sight, and barren- 



n8 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



looking hills stretch away on every side. We scale them, hill after 
hill, and run along the brinks of ravines and gorges that it thrills one 
to look into. At one point, as the train sweeps around a curve, we 
are eighteen hundred feet above the bottom of the gorge, into which 
we can peer from the car window. Were this the first time the as- 
cent had been made, we should shudder with fear ; but we feel that 
there is no danger, and have confidence in our engineers. 

Plunging in and out of numerous tunnels, we at last come out 
into an upland plain, bounded by distant mountains. Farms are 
passed ; signs of cultivation increase ; houses grow numerous ; a 
church stands high above us on a bluff. The whistle sounds shrilly ; 
we are at Caracas. 




CHAPTER X. 

IN VENEZUELA'S CAPITAL. 

Poets, Doctors, and Generals. — The Desayuno. — Terrible Earthquakes. — Cal- 
vario and Cathedral. — Bolivar and his Battles. — Statues with Movable 
Heads. — A Statue of Washington. — Ploughing with a Stick. — Telephones 
and Electric Lights. — Cannon of Long Ago. — A Bull-Fight by Night. 

There was quite a mob at the station when the 
morning train from La Guayra arrived at Ca- 
racas, and it was with difficulty that the Professor 
and myself secured a cab. The fare to a hotel 
was only thirty cents each, or a bolivar and a 
half, but the cochero waited till the cab was filled 
before he started. Once arrived at the region 
of hotels, we found them full, to our great an- 
noyance. There are several hotels of the (so- 
called) first class, and their prices are not so very 
high, being from two to three dollars per day. 
I finally secured part of a room at Los Andes, 
a native hotel. Whether or not this lofty name was bestowed 
on account of its high class or its high prices, neither was very 
lofty, and we had no quarrel with the proprietor on their account. 
The chuno explained that he only took me out of pity, seeing 
that I had no other place to sleep, and so I carefully avoided 
expressing the disgust I felt at my situation. As in La Guayra, 




120 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN 



it is well to avoid an inspection of the cuisine and the comun. 
Nearly all Spanish and Spanish-American hotels are alike in their 
culinary and un-sanitary arrangements. Every room on the ground- 
floor was occupied by a " general," except one, and that was held 
by a " doctor." You are always safe in addressing a man in Ca- 




ANCIENT HOUSE IN CARACAS. 



racas by the one title or the other, for the army turns out one 
class and the university the other faster than they can be used. 
The " doctor " is generally the one who has a hankering after 
literary fame, and who writes lines for the " poet's corner " of the 
city papers. They are good to the poets in Spanish America, 
giving them more than a "corner" of each issue; in fact, they 
generally have a / whole broadside, and control a " corner " in space. 
They have no " patent insides " here, except such as Nature has 



IN VENEZUELA'S CAPITAL. 121 

endowed them with, and so the numerous lucubrations of the poets 
come in quite handy. These effusions are generally addressed to 
the eyes or the feet or the hands or the soul or the handker- 
chief, or to some property or attribute of a fair senorita called 
Clara, Maria, Angelita divina, or something equally sweet and 
" fetching." The particular " doctor " who occupied the quarto next 
to mine was a small-skulled, goggle-eyed, under-sized, brown-skinned 
Mestizo. He did not look as though he could " count one ; " but 
when I, one day, asked an English companion, in the doctor's 
presence, who that insignificant specimen belonged to, he whispered 
to me to be careful, as he could speak English, and understand it, 
with fatal facility. 

I have often noticed, in a coco grove, that the biggest coco-nuts 
did not always contain the most milk. 

According to the Spanish style, the desayuno, or light, very 
light repast, opens the day here, — consisting of coffee or chocolate, 
a roll, and sometimes fruit, served anywhere from daybreak till 
seven or eight o'clock in the morning. Breakfast, or almuerzo, is 
served about noon, or from eleven to one. It consists of half 
a dozen courses, and the comida, or regular dinner, at about six 
p. m., generally has a couple more. As a rule, the meals are bet- 
ter than the rooms, the food being rich and varied, even if not 
cooked to suit the fastidious Americans. Wine is always served, 
and is usually included in the price charged for board. The 
servants are attentive, and though their ideas of cleanliness may 
be at variance with yours, will serve you with alacrity. Owino- to 
the mild climate in this favored region, the tables are often spread 
in a corridor at one side of the patio, and the eye is refreshed with 
the sight of flowers and birds, while the air is cool and pure. 

According to the latest available information, Caracas lies at 
an elevation above the sea of 2,880 feet, and south-southeast from 
La Guayra. Its climate is considered temperate and healthy, 



122 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



though I could not but notice that many people were afflicted 
with "colds/' The mean temperature is about 72 Fahrenheit in 
the hot season, and 66° in the cool. According to the large 
thermometers, which the Caracanians have erected in their every 
public square, whenever I consulted them they registered 
65 in the shade. It is not every city or State that .ggj^-L 
would place thermometers in public 
places, in order to advertise the 
equability of its climate. Fancy 
Hartford or (more particularly) Bos- 
ton, giving prominence to such a 
feature in a list of " attractions." 
We are only too glad to disguise 
the nature of our climate 
to hustle the 
thermometric 
record out of 
sight. If there 
is anything 
we are not 
proud of, it is 
certainly our 
climate. But 
in Venezuela things are different. 

The valley of Caracas is said to be subject to earthquakes, and 
everybody remembers that terrible terremoto of 181 2, when twelve 
thousand persons perished in the ruins of the city. I find a curious 
reference to this great earthquake in Waterton's " Wanderings in 
South America." This great naturalist was then in the wilds of 
Guiana, and had reached a remote frontier post of the Portuguese. 
For days and weeks his only companions had been wild Indians ; but 
at last, sick and weary, he had reached a temporary haven of rest 




A YOUTHFUL BEGGAR OF CARACAS. 



IN VENEZUELA'S CAPITAL. I 23 

" As the canoe was proceeding slowly clown the river toward the 
fort, the commander asked with much concern where was I on the 
night of the 1st of May [18 12] ? On telling him that I was at an 
Indian settlement a little below the great fall of Demerara, and that 
a strange and sudden noise had alarmed all the Indians, he said the 
same astonishing noise had roused every man in Fort St. Joachim, and 
that they had remained under arms till morning. He observed that 
he had been quite at a loss to form any idea what could have caused 
the noise ; but now, learning that the same noise had been heard at 
the same time far away from the Rio Branco, it struck him there 
must have been an earthquake somewhere or other." Later, on reach- 
ing the confines of civilization, he " learned that an eruption had taken 
place at St. Vincentis, and thus the noise heard in the night of the 
1st of May, which had caused such terror among the Indians, and 
made the garrison at Fort St. Joachim remain under arms the rest 
of the night, is accounted for/' The eruption of the volcano in the 
West Indian Island of St. Vincent was almost simultaneous with the 
earthquake at Caracas, It was caused, of course, by the same seismic 
convulsion. The entire top of the volcano was blown away, a new 
crater was formed, and the whole island covered with ashes. Not this 
alone, but ashes fell in clouds upon Barbadoes, ninety-five miles to 
windward ! That is, the cloud of ashes was shot up above the pre- 
vailing current of the trade-wind, which is always from the east and 
northeast, and was carried by that upper current a hundred miles 
and more away. The souffriere, or volcano (sulphur-mountain), of 
St. Vincent stands to-day quiescent. Until that day in 18 12 when it 
blew its head off without warning it had been at rest from time 
immemorial. It may take another period of rest, extending through 
centuries of time, and then suddenly extinguish itself and the beauti- 
ful island, and sink beneath the waves. 

A dozen years ago I climbed to the brim of its dead crater, and 
camped in a cave for a week — my only companion an old negro — 



124 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

in search of a mysterious bird. It was not a comfortable place, and I 
got a fever that kept me confined a month; but I got the bird, and 
had the satisfaction of proving it a species new to the world. It was 
named in honor of my friend, Mr. N. H. Bishop of Lake George, New 
York, the adventurous canoe-voyager, who performed the journey 
between the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Mexico in a paper 
canoe. 

This much for a roundabout journey, suggested to me by the great 
tragedy at Caracas nearly eighty years ago. It was declared by the 
priests at that time that the earthquake was a divine manifestation 
against the (then) recent declaration of Venezuelan independence ; 
and many believed it. It greatly retarded the progress of the cause. 
But judging from the atrocities of the Spaniards during the struggle 
for independence and previously, committed upon the inoffensive 
Indians, Providence must have taken a distorted view of things ; for 
a really humane being would much rather have been on the other side. 
The god of the Spaniards, like the deity of every race or nation, very 
much resembles his creator ; he is sanguinary, revengeful, a god of 
hate and lust, yearning for a chance to spoil the heathen and rend 
them limb from limb. 

The great Cathedral of Caracas stands to-day on one side the 
main plaza, — a plain structure, two hundred and fifty feet long 
by seventy- five wide, supported inside by twenty-four pillars. It 
does not compare favorably with the cathedrals of other Spanish 
capitals, neither do the churches with others of their kind. Above 
the city rises the. hill of Calvario, the scene of a battle between the 
patriots and the Spaniards in 182 1. The valley is separated from 
the La Guayra coast by the hill, Ccrro de Avila, and two miles east 
is the great double-crested mountain called the Silla (Saddle) of 
Caracas, rising to an altitude of eight thousand feet. 

In the list of cities, Caracas ranks first, with respect to wealth, 
influence, and population. Capital of the Republic, here reside the 



IN VENEZUELA'S CAPITAL. I 25 

President and the high officials. Besides the city proper, there are 
six suburban boroughs, Antinamo, Mecarao, La Vega, El Valle, El 
Recreo, and Macuto. The estimated population of the city is about 
fifty-six thousand, or including the suburb, seventy thousand. The 
valley in which it is situated rejoices in a temperate climate ; the 
soil is fertile, producing nearly everything desired by man ; and 
several brooks and streams add beauty to the scenes and fertility 
to the summer gardens. 

Founded over three hundred and fifty years ago, in 1567, by a 
Spanish captain, Caracas remained in Spanish hands two hundred 
and fifty years. It is the focal point of all South American repub- 
licans, since here had birth the republican idea. As the birth? 
place of Bolivar, the great " liberator," it has more than local fame. 
There stands in the centre of the great plaza a fine equestrian statue 
of Bolivar, in bronze. The only other equestrian statue was one of 
Guzman Blanco, and that was recently destroyed by an incensed 
and outraged people. Bolivar, the "Washington of Venezuela," was 
born here July 24, 1783. He was educated in Europe, residing 
some time in Madrid, where he married, losing his wife by yellow 
fever on the voyage back to Venezuela. In the year 1809, he 
passed through the United States, joined the Venezuelan revolution- 
ists in 1810. and Venezuela declared its independence 181 1. Boli- 
var was compelled to flee to Curacoa in 181 2, though he operated 
along the Magdalena River the same year. He returned, organized 
an army, and took Caracas from the Spaniards in 181 3, but lost 
it to them the following- year, in July. The same year, however, he 
rescues Bogota for the patriots," but is later defeated and flees to 
Jamaica, where he narrowly escapes assassination, his secretary 
being murdered. The year 181 6 finds him in Hayti, where he 
reaches the Main, raises an army, but is defeated; but the next 
year he inflicts defeat upon the Spaniards and fixes his headquarters 
at Angostura, on the Orinoco. By July, 18 19, he had freed New 



126 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN 



Granada from the Spaniards, and crushingly defeated the Spaniards 
at Carabobo, Venezuela, driving them to retreat to Puerto Cabello, 
which they held for two years, the last place in Spanish possession. 
In 182 1, Colombia, Venezuela, and New Granada adopted a consti- 
tution. In 1822, Bolivar invaded Peru, freeing it from Spanish rule, 
and in 1825, Upper Peru was set off and named Bolivia in his 




STATUE OF BOLIVAR, CARACAS. 



honor. This great man, who at one time "had unlimited control 
over the revenue of three countries, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, yet 
died without a penny of public money in his possession." He died 
in 1830, at San Pedro, near Santa Martha. 

Very few of his successors to the executive have followed his 
example of disinterested patriotism. This is what an English writer 
says about it : " How a country gifted with one of the best codes 



IN VENEZUELA'S CAPITAL. I 27 

of law in existence could, through the utter depravity, greed, and 
cruelty of successive chiefs, have fallen into its present state seems 
incredible. Enough that from its liberation to the present, every suc- 
cessive President seems to have been employed, during his short lease 
of power, in trying to enrich himself and his adherents, without the 
least consideration for his unfortunate country. On paper, all laws 
are perfect, and the Constitution is all that could be desired; but 
experience has shown that the influence of the executive power is 
able to subdue and absorb every other power, legislative and judicial." 

About the numerous Venezuelan generals, the same writer says, 
" These worthies, it is said, are the only people allowed to wear 
swords in public. A major of an English regiment, being out in 
Venezuela in the interior one morning, being about to pay a visit 
to the governor, asked his servant for his sword, intending to put 
it on, with his uniform. His servant gravely asked his rank in the 
army, and on being told, observed that officers of that rank when 
not on duty were not allowed to wear swords ; but that he, the 
servant, being a general, could wear it, and hand it over to his 
master if it was wanted for use. 

" It is customary to erect a bronze statue to every successful 
general, when he is in power; but this is usually pulled down by 
his successor. A cute Yankee, therefore, hit upon the novel idea 
of having statues with movable heads, keeping the heads of prominent 
men in stock, and screwing on the latest President at a moment's 
notice." 

There stands on one side of the Plaza de Bolivar a plain 
structure, massive in its construction, but unattractive either out- 
side or in. In the centre of this plaza is the beautiful bronze statue 
of the liberator 'Bolivar, mounted upon a gallant steed, — a figure 
impressive and heroic, — erected in 1874. Very near the plaza are 
the government buildings, fine Corinthian structures, and opposite 
them the university. 



128 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



There are ten chief squares in the city, each with a statue of 
some important personage. The only foreigner that I can recall 
as being thus honored is our own Washington, who has a fine statue 
in a square bearing his name. The buildings of importance are the 
national Capitol, consisting of two parts, — the legislative and the 
federal executive ; the Yellow House (Casa Amarilld), the residence 




GRAND OPERA HOUSE, CARACAS. 



of the President ; the university ; the exhibition building and mu- 
seum; the great theatre; the Cathedral; the Church of San Francisco, 
the monument to Bolivar; and the Pantheon. West of the city, and 
above the grand promenade of Calvario, lies a great reservoir, which 
supplies the city. 

It is a lovely spot, Calvario, filled with palms, vines, and roses, with 
a bordering of aloe and feathery bamboo, through which you look out 
upon the city of Caracas, three hundred fee't below. Seriated moun- 



IN VENEZUELA'S CAPITAL. 



129 



tains surround this valley, in the centre of which lies the capital city 
of this rich land of Venezuela. The area of red-tiled roofs is broken 
by comparatively few buildings of great prominence, such as the 
Cathedral, the grand opera, the shabby bull-ring, the Pantheon, and 
two or three churches. Very few trees thrust themselves up above 
the expanse of stone and mortar, but these few are mainly the royal 




A DONKEY CAR. 



palms, called here the jaguaranas. A most attractive avenue of these 
beautiful palms is to be seen a mile or so distant from the opera. 
They are at least one hundred feet in height, straight as a ship's 
mast, with glorious coronals of feathery leaves. One morning, stroll- 
ing in that direction, I saw two men ploughing with a yoke of oxen 
hitched to a wooden plough, — merely a crooked stick, — and it struck 
me as a very curious sight. 

9 



130 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN 

To view the city of Caracas in its entirety, to gain a comprehen- 
sive idea of this capital with its fifty-six thousand population, and to 
see all its architectural attractions at a glance, you should climb the 
hill above the great iron bridge. The highest natural elevation near 
any Spanish or Spanish-American city is usually crowned by a cross, 
and called Calvario. To such sacred use, I believe, was devoted this 
beautiful hill, — at least, it is called Calvario ; but Guzman Blanco, in 
the plenitude of his power as President, some time ago erected a statue 
of himself in place of the cross of Christ, and thus offered the people 
another object for worship. In the opinion of Guzman Blanco (and 
in the slang of this period) there appeared to be no flies on Guzman 
Blanco. Yet after his flight from the country, the outraged people 
rose in their wrath and rent his statue limb from limb, leaving not the 
minutest fragment to remind us of his glory. As the redoubtable 
Guzman, by a strict attention to business during his various terms of 
office, saved some thirty odd millions of dollars and now lives in luxury 
abroad, he may view with complacency this desecration of Calvario. 

It is said that Caracas contains forty bridges. Some of them are 
excellent structures of iron and of masonry. Near the large iron 
bridge east of the city is a very beautiful avenue, a double row of 
royal palms. It is called in Caracas the Jaguaranas. 

More than forty papers are published in the city. Most of them 
are political ; but literature itself is at a low ebb. The Government 
also owns and runs a large and well-equipped printing and lithograph- 
ing establishment, which has sent out among other things an edition 
of one hundred thousand copies of its " Statistical Annuary," each 
copy containing a lithographed map in several colors. The city is 
traversed by two tramway lines, which render excellent service, and is 
also well supplied with coaches. It is now the centre of four rail- 
ways, — that from La Guayra, already completed ; another to the town 
of Petare ; one to El Valle ; and another to Antinuano. Soon, it is 
expected, at least one line will be completed, connecting Caracas with 



IN VENEZUELA'S CAPITAL. 



!3I 



Valencia and thus indirectly with Puerto Cabello. This line runs 
through a fertile and picturesque district, though not densely popu- 
lated enough to make the venture a great success. 

Two telephone companies, with their headquarters here, are profit- 
ably patronized. The city is lighted with gas, and an electric-light 
plant is in operation, though not apparently so successfully as those 
at Valencia and Maracaibo. Fuel is scarce, and the price excessive, 




STATUE OF WASHINGTON, CARACAS. 



which will always operate against electric lighting in Venezuela. Of 
hospitals and the institutions of charity, Caracas has several, a na- 
tional museum, and a library of thirty thousand volumes. 

The Venezuelan Academy is correspondent of the Royal Spanish, 
and history is represented by the National Academy, created a few 
years ago. 

I must confess to a feeling of satisfaction and a more tender 
regard for the Venezuelans, as I came one morning upon the statue 



I32 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN 

of our greatest American. The square in which it stands is called 
the Plaza de Washington, and the statue is a faithful likeness of 
Washington, with epaulets on his shoulders, a cocked hat in his left 
hand, and one arm commandingly extended. In one of the courts of 
the university is a memento of ancient Spanish times, in the shape of 
a noble old cannon, some fifteen feet in length, bearing a date on its 
breech of two hundred and sixty years ago. The old and new so 
crowd each other here! Of their own volition the Venezuelans do 
next to nothing to keep pace with the times, but they allow the for- 
eigner to put them in touch with the mighty genius of the present. 
Thus the telephone here is doing a great and profitable business, 
tram-cars reach out to the suburbs, and electric lights are already 
aglow in their streets. They take readily to the electric light, — la 
luz electrica, — and we find it to-day in the inland city of Valencia 
and sparkling along the lake-front of far-distant Maracaibo. I recall, 
however, a night that threatened with disaster the electric plant of 
Caracas, and I do not know yet if it has recovered its prestige. It 
was on the occasion of the greatest bull-fight of the season, — yes, 
even of the century, if it had been carried out according to pro- 
gramme. Not content with the Sunday fight, in which eight bulls 
had been neatly killed and several men put in peril of their lives, all 
Caracas flocked to see the crowning event, in a grand bull-fight by 
electric light. It was the first of the kind attempted, and — well, it 
went off very well, till the lights went out on the fifth bull, and then 
ensued pandemonium. After venting their rage in wrecking the 
amphitheatre, the male portion of the rabble made for the electric- 
light works, and when I left they were searching for rocks and beams 
with which to batter down the doors. 



CHAPTER XL 

WHAT WE FOUND IN THE MUSEUM. 

Side-Peeps at Natural History- — Old Caribs and their Cookery. — Curious 
Parrots. — Wourali Poison. — Big Lizards. — Anacondas Fifty Feet Long. — 
Alligator's Appetite. 




" A naturalist to this place did come, 
A man who dwelt in a mu-se-um, 
Where of spiders and reptiles there were some 
Ten thousand or more, all pickled in rum." 

A R AC AS has been pretty well described, by numer- 
ous writers, in the ninety years or so since the great 
earthquake elevated it into notice. 

In looking about for some object worthy the 
distinguished attention of readers of this " Knock- 
about," we recall nothing that impressed us as did 
the museum, contained in two or three rooms in the university build- 
ing. Not that it is much of a museum, for the collections there 
comprised are most wretched, both in preparation and arrangement. 
But notwithstanding the neglect and ignorance apparent on every 
side, there are here many things that remind us of Venezuela's riches 
to be observed in field and forest. And so if the reader will pardon 
this departure from descriptive writing, we will proceed to record our 
impressions and go on a "paper" hunt into Venezuelan wilds. 

If we were to write of Venezuelan history, we would like to make 
mention of the first arrival of Columbus on the coast of Paria. He 



134 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



first sighted, on that third voyage of his, in 1498, the mountains of 
Trinidad, — which island, indeed, received its name from its triple- 
crowned summit : La Trinidad, the Trinity. 

We have already described, in " The Antilles," this beautiful island, 
with its unsurpassed attractions, — the finest botanic garden in the 

world, and the wonderful Pitch 
Lake. One comes also to the 
Orinoco River and the gold mines 
of Bolivar. It was from a very 
quaint and ancient volume that 
we took the following account 
of the discovery of the South 
American mainland : — 

" We vnderstoode by the signs 




and 



P°) ; 



ntings of the Indians 



*^s* 



that this Region was called Pa- 
ria, and that it was very large. 
The Admirall [Columbus], there- 
fore, taking into his shippe foure 
men of that lande, searched the 
West partes of the same. By 
the temperature of the ayer, the 
pleasantness of the ground, and 
the multitude of people which 
they saw dayly more and more 
as they sayled, they conjectured 
that these things portended some great matter. Here they found 
great multitudes of people. There came certaine messengers from 
their Cacici (that is, the kings of the country) to desire the Admi- 
rall to come to the palaces. Innumerable people met them, hav- 
ing chaynes about their necks and bracelettes on their arms of 
pearles of India. Being asked where they gathered them, they 



A VAGRANT VIOLINIST. 



WHAT WE FOUND IN THE MUSEUM. 1 35 

poynted to the next shore by the sea-banke. They signified also, by 
certayne scornefull gestures, that they nothing esteemed pearles. 
Taking also baskets in their handes they made signes that the same 
might be filled with them in shorte space. 

"But Columbus (because of the corne wherewith his shippe was 
laden to be caryed into Hispaniola had taken hurt, by reason of the 
salt water) he determined to defer this marte to a more convenient 
tyme." 

Alas and alack for Columbus! While he was engaged in other 
adventures, and before that " convenient tyme " came about, along 
sailed Amerigo Vespucci and some other Spaniards, and made such 
a haul of pearls (from the very islands Columbus had sighted) that all 
Spain " marvelled greatly thereat" The courses of that early history 
would lead us into many pleasant ports and along many a golden 
strand ; but as we have hinted already, it is forbidden gro'und. If it 
were not, we should be tempted to extract further from that musty old 
edition of " Hakluyt's Voyages," and describe divers other things of 
interest. As it is, we cannot forbear presenting you with this account 
of the discovery of the Indian cannibals : — 

"The third day of the ides of October (1493), departing from 
Ferria, and from the coastes • of Spaine, with a Nauie of seventeene 
shippes, they sayled XXI daies before they came to any lande, and 
arrived first at the Ilandes of the Canibales, or Caribes, of which only 
the fame was known to our men. Among these, they chaunced first 
upon one so beset with trees that they could not see so much as an 
elle space of bare earth or stonie ground ; this they called Dominica, 
because they found it on the Sunday." 

In the island called Guadalupus they found the dwellings of the 
Caribs : — 

" Our men found in their houses all kindes of earthen vessels, 
not much unlike unto ours. They founde also in their kytchens 
mans flesh, duckes flesh, and goose flesh, all in one pot, and other on 



136 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON. THE SPANISH MAIN. 

the spits ready to be layd to the fire. When they perceived the 
coming of our men, they fledde. This island is the chief habitation 
of the Canibales. They brought from this iland VII Popiniayes 
bigger than Phesantes, having their backes, bustes, and bellies of 
purple colour." 

These " Popiniayes," I think, were the island parrots. At present, 
the species pertaining to Guadalupe is extinct; but it is a strange 
fact that each large island of the Caribbees has, or had, a species of 
parrot peculiar to itself. In Dominica, only thirty miles south of 
Guadalupe, is a most beautiful parrot, called the " Cicero " (the 
Chrysotis augusta), the largest true parrot known. I brought the 
first specimen home to our National Museum, and had most exciting 
times in procuring it. Martinique, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent, each 
has a peculiar species of this magnificent Chrysotis. And the strik- 
ing fact that these islands, separated by water, — channels only thirty 
miles wide, — should contain different species of the same genus of 
bird, without a specimen of the same species, has been alluded to by 
Wallace in his remarkable u Island Life." 

A Frenchman of long ago, in the year 1656, describes a fight 
between his countrymen and the Caribs near the Caribbee island of 
Dominica : " While we were occupied in saving the wounded, the 
old savage Carib captain, all wounded as he was, came towards us, 
and raising his body half out of the water, like a Triton, holding two 
arrows on the string of his bow, fired them into the barque, and dived 
immediately into the water; he returned thus bravely unto the charge, 
and his strength failing him before his courage, we saw him fall back- 
ward and sink to the bottom." That period, the seventeenth century, 
was a terrible time for Indians and negro slaves, for their lives were 
held worthless. In 1657, in Martinique, a woman was burned to 
death for witchcraft. A priest presided at her trial ; the report of 
the trial states that she would not sink in water, but floated like a 
balloon, until a needle was stuck in her hair, when she sank like lead, 



WHAT WE FOUND IN THE MUSEUM. 1 37 

but came up thirsty. She was then condemned to death, and was 
burned by the priest so that she died that night. 

In 1658, there was a great massacre of the Caribs at Martinique. 
To-day not one of them remains alive in that island. In 1660, the 
Caribs, by treaty, were given possession of the islands of Dominica 
and St. Vincent, where a few of their descendants may be found liv- 
ing now. 

To return to the museum at Caracas. There you will find speci- 
mens, though crudely prepared, of the most remarkable animals in 
Venezuela's fauna. I was pained to see there specimens of the beau- 
tiful and celebrated campanero, or bell-bird, so horribly mounted as to 
present a caricature of this bird with the melancholy cry. There are 
also specimens of Indian handiwork, in their bows, arrows, war- 
clubs, cooking utensils, and even their canoes. I was particularly in- 
terested in a cluster of poisoned arrows, from the wild Indians of the 
interior. 

Many of my readers have heard of Waterton, the eccentric natural- 
ist who achieved fame by his adventures in Guiana, — a region then 
pertaining to Venezuela, and the dividing line between which and the 
latter country is still a matter of dispute. 

Waterton made three voyages to Guiana, the first in 181 2, his 
principal object being to collect some of the wourali poison, with 
which the Guiana Indians poisoned their arrows. Waterton was pos- 
sessed with the idea that it was incumbent upon him to secure that 
poison, whatever the consequences of journeys by strange rivers and 
through the wildest forests. He was finally successful ; but I cannot 
find that the drug was ever of any use to man. The naturalist's ac- 
count of his discovery, and the adventures he had by the way, are 
worth reading, as is also his description of the manner in which the 
Indians prepare the poison : — 

"A day or two before the Maconshi Indian prepares his poison, 
he goes into the forest in quest of the ingredients. A vine 



138 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

these wilds which is called wourali. It is from this that the poison takes 
its name, and it is the principal ingredient. When he has procured 
enough of this, he digs up a root of a very bitter taste, ties them together, 
and then looks about for two kinds of bulbous plants which contain 
a green and glutinous juice. He fills a little quake which he carries 
on his back with the stalks of these, and lastly ranges up and down 
till he finds two species of ants. One of them is very large and 
black, and so venomous that its sting produces a fever; the other is a 
little red ant which stings like a nettle. After obtaining these, he has 
no more need to range the forest. 

" A quantity of strongest Indian pepper is used ; but this he has 
already planted around his hut. The pounded fangs of the Labarri 
snake and those of the Conanaconchi are also used. These he com- 
monly has in store, for when he kills a snake he generally extracts the 
fangs and keeps them by him. Having thus found the necessary in- 
gredients, he scrapes the wourali vine and bitter root into thin shav- 
ings and puts them into a kind of colander made of leaves ; this he 
holds over an earthen pot, and pours water on the shavings, the liquor 
that comes through having the appearance of coffee. Then the shav- 
ings are thrown aside, and the juice of the bulbous stalks is squeezed 
into the pot. Lastly the snakes' fangs, ants, and pepper are bruised 
and thrown into it. 

" It is then placed on a slow fire, and as it boils, more of the 
wourali juice is added ; the scum is taken off with a leaf; and it re- 
mains on the fire until reduced to a thick syrup of a deep brown color. 
Arrived at this state, a few arrows are poisoned with it to try its 
strength. If satisfactory, it is poured out into a calabash, carefully 
covered over with leaves and a piece of deerskin, and kept in the 
driest part, of the hut. 

" The making of the wourali poison is considered a gloomy and 
mysterious operation, and many precautions are taken. The Indian 
secludes himself; he fasts all the day the poison is prepared; and 




-MACOXSHI IXDIAXS PREPARING WOURALI POISOX. 



WHAT WE FOUND IN THE MUSEUM. 



141 



women and young girls are not allowed to be present, lest the 
Labahon, or evil spirit, should do them harm." 

The arrows dipped in the wourali mixture carry death into what- 
ever creature they penetrate. A fowl, wounded with one, died in 
five minutes, an ox in twenty-five. " In passing overland from the 
Essequibo to the Demerara, we fell in with a herd of wild hogs. 






^M: 




THE PROFESSOR AFTER A BABY LIZARD, 



Though encumbered with baggage, and fatigued with a hard day's 
walk, an Indian got his bow ready and let fly an arrow that entered 
the cheek of one of the hogs and broke off. This wild hog was 
found quite dead about one hundred and seventy paces from the place 
where he had been shot. He afforded us an excellent and wholesome 
supper." 

It is very strange that the wourali poison does not injure the flesh 



14- 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



in any way. Like the poison of the rattlesnake, it may be taken into 
the system in the natural way without harm. I cannot learn that this 
powerful poison has yet been used in Venezuela by any but the 
Indians, or that it has proved of service in the pharmacopoeia. Be- 
sides the poi- 
soned arrows, 
one may see' 
the museum 
specimens of the 
poison itself, look- 
ing like the inspis- 
sated juice of the 
poppy. 

If I were asked 
to mention the 
most hideous occupant of 
i,i this museum, I should 
think at once of the isru- 
ana. This big lizard, often 
sought after by the Pro- 
's fessor, is not by any means a beauty when in life, 
> but here all its monstrosities are exaggerated by 
^ the ignorant taxidermist. Iguana-flesh is sold in 
Venezuelan markets, and I myself have tasted it. 




A COURT. 



As the reptile feeds on leaves, its flesh should not 
be rejected, I am sure. In the old book referred to, mention is 
made of — 

" Serpentes also, of that kinde esteemed among them as most 
delicate meat & like unto crocodile, saving in bignesse. These 
serpentes they call Inaunas. The Indians prepare them after this 
manner: First, taking out their bowelles, even from the throte to 
the thyghes, they washe and rubbe their bodies verie cleane, both 



WHAT WE FOUND IN THE MUSEUM. 143 

within & without, then rolling them together in a circle, involved after 
the manner of a sleeping snake, they thrust them into a pot, putting 
a little water unto them, with a portion of the Hand pepper, they 
seethe them with a soft fire of sweet wood and such as maketh 
no great smoake. 

" They say also that there is no meat to be compared to the 
egges of these serpentes, which they use to seethe by themselves ; 
they are good to be eaten as soon as they are sodde, and may 
also be reserved many dayes after. This much of their entertayne- 
ment and dayntie fare ; which our men learned late to adventure^ 
by reason of this horrible deformity and loathsomenese." 

Coiled about the trunk of a tree was the stuffed skin of an 
enormous serpent. 

In the Orinoco district of Venezuela the serpents attain to great 
size, says a writer of adventures in that region : — 

" At a place called El Enayaval (or the guava-wood), where our 
party halted, the men discovered in the morning a very large water- 
snake of the species called by the Indians camondi, which they 
resolved to kill. It was dangerous to approach it, for on being 
disturbed, it had raised its head out of the marsh to the full height 
of a man, and appeared ready to dart on the first person that 
should venture within its reach. The soldiers, however, advancing 
cautiously, threw a lazo round its throat, with which, the end being 
fastened to a horse's tail, they dragged it by slow degrees from 
its hiding-place. Its struggles were at first violent ; but as the 
horse kept a constant tight strain upon the lazo, the snake was 
unable to extricate itself or approach the horse. On getting weaker 
by strangulation, it was dragged along the plain about half a league, 
until it was so far rendered incapable of resistance that one of 
the men dismounted and cut off its head with several blows of 
the machete. 

" We found it to be fully twenty-five feet long and thick in pro- 



144 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

portion. The belly appearing preternaturally distended, we opened 
it out of curiosity, and found it to contain a young calf, which 
did not appear to have been long swallowed. This sufficiently 
accounted for the ease with which the reptile was killed, as snakes 
lose their activity for some time after having obtained a hearty 
meal. My Llaneros assured me that camondis have been killed 
on the marshy banks of the river Cunavichi, measuring eighteen 
lengths of a machete, or over fifty feet." 

While certain forest districts swarm with snakes, the banks of 
rivers are alive with alligators, or caymens. In Florida the alli- 
gator is comparatively harmless ; but in Venezuela, according to 
some writers, the cayman (perhaps a true crocodile) is extremely 
dangerous. 

It has often been asserted, and many times denied, that the 
cayman, or caiman, the alligator of the South-American rivers, will 
pursue and devour man. Here is the testimony of the author of 
" Campaigns and Cruises in Venezuela " : — 

" When an Indian has occasion to swim across any pass of 
a river known to be the haunt of a dangerous alligator, he pro- 
vides himself with a stout stick about eighteen inches in length, 
sharpened at both ends. Should he be attacked by one while in 
the water, he presents the stick to the expanded jaws, and as the 
cayman endeavors ravenously to seize him, the sharp points of the 
stick pierce the roof of the mouth and under-jaw in such a manner 
as to render it incapable of extricating itself. The Indian may 
then with safety kill it, or leave it to drown. 

" The Llaneros, or inhabitants of the plains bordering on the 
rivers where these animals abound, take great delight in catching 
the cayman by means of a lazo of tough bull-hide. This noose 
they throw dexterously over its head while it is floating near the 
bank, and drag it on shore by the united strength of ten or twelve 
men. Its rage and consternation on finding itself captive are ex- 



WHAT WE FOUND IN THE MUSEUM. 1 47 

cessive ; but after the first violent struggles to effect its escape, 
it remains perfectly motionless, with the upper jaw raised in readi- 
ness for an attack, giving occasional proof of the immense strength 
of its jaws by the ease with which it splinters between its teeth 
the thigh-bones and skulls of bullocks thrown to it by its captors. 

" One of our lancers lost his life while we were swimming a 
lagoon. When he was nearly halfway across, we saw a large cayman, 
which was known to infest this pass, issuing from under the man- 
grove-trees. We instantly warned our companion of his danger, 
but it was too late for him to turn back. When the alligator 
was so close as to be on the point of seizing him, he threw his 
saddle at it. The ravenous reptile instantly caught the whole bundle 
in its jaws and disappeared for a few minutes, but soon discov- 
ered its mistake and rose in front of the horse, which, then seeing 
it for the first time, reared and threw its rider. He was an ex- 
cellent swimmer, and had nearly escaped, but was finally caught 
by the middle and drowned before our eyes, the alligator afterwards 
dragging the body out upon a sand-bank and there devouring it." 

The reader cannot fail to bring to mind in this connection 
Waterton's account of his capture of a cayman in Guiana, at about 
the same time this was written. 

We must confess that Waterton's story of riding an alligator, 
which was copied into all the school " readers " and story-books of 
half a century ago, has always seemed to us an exaggeration. After 
all, what did it matter whether or not he mounted the captive cayman 
and rode astride him, while his negroes pulled him to the shore ? 

We did not intend to confine ourselves to making extracts from 
books when we began ; but at least, we have followed Emerson's 
advice, — to read no book less than twenty years old. Besides, there 
is more " meat " in them than in anything we can now write from 
personal observation. 



CHAPTER XII. 



SOMETHING TO EAT, IN THE TROPICS. 




Some Venezuelan Products. — Fruits And Vegetables of the Tropics. — Soap- 
berry and Poison-Tree. 

HE question oftenest asked us after returning from a 
tropical trip is, " What do the people eat ? " It seems 
to be a prevailing impression that residents in the 
horrid zone have great difficulty in obtaining wholesome 
food. This impression of course is wholly erroneous. 
Although there is not the great variety of vegetables 
and small fruits that we have in the North, yet there is 
sufficient to give a varied menu. There is no country 
like our own New England for fruits and vegetables, especially small 
fruits and berries. We have, I think, more berries growing wild in 
our fields, woods, and pastures, more delicious fruits in our gardens, 
than any other equal extent of contiguous territory on the globe. 
Any one who will go into the fields late in the spring can be con- 
vinced of this. 

But tropic dwellers are not without their solace, having several 
peculiar products of their own, as we all know. I need not mention 
such noted sub-tropical fruits as the pineapple, orange, lime, lemon, 
soursop, custard-apple, mango, guava, banana, plantain. I have often 
been asked the difference between the banana (Musa sapientum) and 
the plantain [Musa paradisiaca). Perhaps the best answer that can 



SOMETHING TO EAT IN THE TROPICS. 



149 



be given is that the first may be eaten raw, while the plantain must 
be cooked. As seen growing in the plantations, the casual observer 
would hardly distinguish a difference ; but while the banana attains 
to the luscious fruit we all have eaten, the plantain is dry and almost 
tasteless. 




FRUIT-DEALER OF CARACAS. 



There is perhaps no more beautiful object in Nature than the 
banana, or plantain, as seen growing in tropical luxuriance in the 
West Indian mountains. A wild plant, that we find in climbing 
through the " high woods," called the balisin, or wild plantain, has 
leaves that faintly resemble the musa, but it belongs to an entirely 
different family. 

Of vegetables, the tropic-dwellers have a supply in the yam 
{JDioscorea sativa) and alata, the sweet potato, the cassava (Jatropha 



150 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

manihot), and the sweet cassava (Jatropha janipha), the tamer and the 
eddoe. Of them all, the cassava seems to be the most useful. 
The root is grated and baked into thin cakes. In its natural state 
the cassava is very poisonous ; but this poisonous quality is wholly in 
the juice, which is expressed by means of a long tube of basket- 
work, the grated root being packed into it and pressure applied by 
hitching a stone to the lower end. The heat of baking dissipates 
the remaining juice, and the bread is quite palatable. The juice 
itself is used in making that famous West Indian compound called 
"pepper-pot," or cassareep, which is usually so hot with red-pepper 
that a novice cannot even approach it. 

The vegetables of the Northern zone do not take kindly to the 
tropical climate, and there is no great variety offered. 

Venezuela yields to no other country within the tropics in its 
range of fruits, vegetables, and woods. I have already mentioned the 
coco-nut, cacao, and bread-fruit. The above are the main retinue for 
the table, so far as spontaneous natural products go. In supplying 
their tables with meat, the Venezuelans are not so fortunate. The 
quantity, quality, and variety are limited. Beef is poor and dry, 
mutton the same, and the omnivorous goat forms the basis of supply. 
Now and then the people treat themselves to a change by substi- 
tuting a kid for the tough and bellicose " Billy-goat." 

Of wild animals the country at large affords quite a number. In 
the forests, the peccary lives, though at a long distance from the set- 
tlements. Deer are found in abundance in some sections, rabbits 
everywhere, and armadillos. The armadillo, though protected by 
its shell, does not enjoy immunity from danger. It is constantly 
sought, and forms a staple article in the local market. Its habits are 
somewhat like those of our native woodchuck. It has a hole all 
to itself ; and when its retreat is invaded, it will extend that hole at 
one end about as fast as two smart men and a boy can open it at 
the other. It takes sometimes half a day to resurrect an armadillo, 



SOMETHING TO EAT, IN THE TROPICS. 151 

and when once you have got him in hand you have then to "shuck" 
him out of his shell, by a process as difficult to the operator as it is 
painful to the armadillo. Its native name is cachicamo, — a name also 
by which it was known here four hundred years ago, and which must 
be aboriginal. In the West Indies I found it called by the negroes, 
Hag-in-amah, which I then took to mean a " hog in armor," but 
which may have been a corruption of its Venezuelan appellation. 
Only a short time ago, the steward of the steamer I was in served 
us a cachicdmo for breakfast. It' resembled the finest veal, and had 
a delicious flavor all its own. 




AN INDIAN HUT IN THE INTERIOR. 



Raleigh calls the pineapple " the princesse of fruits [the Pinas] 
that grow under the sun ; " and he describes well the poison used 
by the Indians on their arrows. The ourari {Strycknos toxifera), 
says Schomburgh, is only known to grow in three or four situations 
in Guiana. It is a bush-rope, or ligneous climber, which kind of 
plants are called by the French liane, and by the Spaniards bejuco. 
I cannot forbear quoting a few things this great man and born 
explorer says about the animals of Venezuela. At this moment, in 
looking over my notes, I find something quaint he says about the 
armadillo : — 



152 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

" One of the Indians gave me a beaste called by the Spaniards 
Armadilla, and which they call Cassacam, which seemeth to be all 
barred over with small plates, somewhat like unto a Renocero, with 
a white home growing in his hinder partes, as big as a greate hunt- 
ing home, which they use to winde [blow] instead of a trumpet. 
Monardus writeth that a little of the powder of that home, put 
into the eare, cureth deafness." 

And afterward : " We feasted ourselves with that beaste which is 
called Armadillo,? That was at a feast where he found the Indians 
" all drunke as beggers, and the pottes walking from one to another 
without rest." In one of the lagoons he saw the manatee, or Maniti, 
" as big as a wine pipe, which they call Maniti, and is most excellent 
and holsome meate ; " and, " One of our guides kindled a fire with 
two sticks." 

Referring to the peccary, he says, " I fedd on the porck of that 
country." His " pig " is represented (says Schomburgh) by the pec- 
cary, the hare by the agutu — Dasyprocta aguti, — the lion by the puma, 
and the tiger by the jaguar. 

Leaving the animal for the vegetable kingdom again, I feel con- 
strained to mention two or three productions of Venezuela seldom 
used outside the country. One of these is the roucon, or amatto, — 
a plant cultivated by the Caribs at the period of their discovery, and 
still to be found growing in the negro and Indian gardens. Raleigh 
says of it, — 

" These be divers berries that dye the most perfect crimson and 
carnation; and for painting, all France, Italy, or the East Indies 
yield none such. For the more the skin is washed, the fayrer the 
cullour appeareth, and with which e'en those brown and tannie women 
spot themselves and cullour their cheeks." 

The Carib warriors, as well as the women, delighted to adorn 
themselves with roucon. 

I once found mention of one of these warriors, at the time Guada- 



SOMETHING TO EAT IN THE TROPICS. 



153 



lupe was first settled, who made a friendly visit to a white settler. 
The noble Carib was clad solely in a rich coat of roucon. Arrived 
at the settler's hut, he espied a nice new canvas hammock, white and 
clean, and into this comfortable bed he plunged himself without cere- 



seeing the red and naked Indian 
mock, gave a cry of dismay, at 
comprehending that he was not 
left the greater part of his gar- 
mock! 



mony. The settler's wife, 
appropriate her best ham- 
which the child of the forest, 
wanted, arose and fled, but 
ment clinging to the ham- 

The most com- 
mon things attract 
our attention far 
from home. What 
more beautiful, for 
instance, than a field 
of waving Indian corn ! 

" Comparatively few even of those 
to whom corn is one of the most com- 
mon of all objects, and who are in the 
habit of handling more or less of that 
noble grain every day, know how ro- 
mantic a history it has. While /there is 
no question as to its antiquity, there is 
much doubt about the place of its ori- 
gin. It has been found in the tombs 

and ruins of South America, in the caves of Arizona, and in the 
mounds of Utah. The Smithsonian Institute has an ear of corn 
found in the tomb of a mummy, near Ariquipi, Peru ; and Dar- 
win mentions the head of a stalk found imbedded in a sea-drift 
eighty-five feet above the level of the sea. Petrified stalks and ears 
were found, perfect in appearance, in working a stone quarry near 
La Prairie, in Illinois. In a neat and useful little manual, issued by 




SCENE IN THE MARKET, CARACAS. 



154 THE, KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

J. C. Vaughan, it is said that those who claim Asia for the original 
home of maize, point to the representation of the plant found in an 
ancient Chinese book in the Royal Library in Paris, and tell of the 
grain being found in cellars of ancient houses in Athens. Rifaud 
speaks of finding the grain and ear of maize within the tomb of a 
mummy at Thebes in 1819. Some, like Corbett, claim that it is the 
corn of Scripture, and in support of the claim quote the following: 
' And it came to pass that He went through the cornfields on the 
Sabbath day; and His disciples, as they went, began to pluck the 
ears of the corn.' Again, from Lev. ii. 14: 'And if thou offer a 
meat offering of thy first fruits unto the Lord, thou shalt offer for 
the meat offering of .thy firstfruits green ears of corn dried by the fire, 
even corn beaten out of full ears.' Lev. xxiii. 14: 'And ye shall eat 
neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the self-same 
day that ye have brought an offering unto your God.' Gen. xli. 5 
(concerning Pharaoh's second dream) : ' And he slept and dreamed 
the second time ; and, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one 
stalk, rank and good.' Job xxiv. 24 says the wicked are ' cut off as 
the tops of the ears of corn.' 

" An unimpeachable history of Indian corn can never be written, as 
the subject is full of counterfacts, contradictions, and speculations. 
Learned authorities, both early and late, have differed as to its origin, 
— some claiming it a native of Asia, others of America." 

There is little doubt, the Professor thinks, that Indian corn, so- 
called, is indigenous to America. It was found growing here by the 
Spanish adventurers, and taken by them to Europe and the East. 

Now, before I leave this subject of fruits and vegetables found 
in the tropics, let me allude to another tropical production. It is 
the cacao (Aztec cacahuatl), the Theobroma cacao, or " food for gods." 
It is certainly an indigenous plant of Mexico, mentioned by all the 
early writers upon that country as of great service to the Mexican 
nobility. Like maize and the native turkey, it found its way into 



SOMETHING TO EAT, IN THE TROPICS. 1 55 

Europe soon after the conquest of Mexico, and is now raised in all the 
South American States, in Africa, and in Asia. It is not so beautiful 
an object in the vegetable world as the banana, but doubtless its fruit 
is of more wide-spread utility and more highly appreciated by the 
residents of Northern climes far from its habitat. 

The tree attains a height of about twenty feet, being in full bear- 
ing in six years, and yielding large crops of beans (chocolate) for two 
decades or more. The bean from which chocolate is made is con- 
tained in a large pod surrounded by a white, sweetish pulp. The 
native mode of preparation, after the bean is separated from its enclos- 
ing pulp and dried, is to grind it, generally upon a flat stone after 
roasting, so as to convert it into a perfectly smooth paste. It is 
then mixed with a little vanilla, or flavored with other aromatic spices 
found in the forests growing wild. At the present time it forms the 
favorite beverage of Yucatan and the warmer portions of Mexico, 
where also the cacao-seeds are even now used as currency. The first 
mention of this peculiar coin is in 1502, when Columbus first descried 
the coast of Yucatan ; a boat came off laden with the products of the 
country, and among them those. 

Cortes, in one of his letters to his sovereign, describing a plan- 
tation then being prepared for the king at Malinaltepec, says, " These 
Indians planted sixty fanagas of maize and ten of beans, together with 
two thousand cacao-trees, which bear a fruit resembling an almond, 
and is held in such estimation that it is used as money throughout 
the country and employed in purchase in the markets and elsewhere." 
I myself have seen the cacao-beans used as currency in Yucatan, and 
have drunk the delicious chocolate as prepared at the hands of the 
native cooks. 

A French traveller, remarking on this strange medium of exchange, 
says, " The medio (six cents) is not sufficiently small to meet the 
wants of petty trade, so they cut it in halves and quarters ; the first is 
called cuartillas, and the latter chicas. After the chicas, the grains of 



156 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

cacao come in to balance exchanges in the proportion of from eighty 
to one hundred and sixty grains to the medio, according to the crop." 
Cacao, although cultivated in many districts throughout the republic, 
finds in the State of Tobasco a soil and climate especially adapted to 
its growth, and is there raised in large quantities. Certain portions 
of the States of Vera Cruz, Guerrero, Michoacan, Colima, Oaxaca, 
and Chiapas are favorable to its cultivation ; and the cacao of Socon- 
usco, in the last State, is much sought after. From the cacao-seeds 
the ancient Aztecs prepared chocolate (in their language chocolatl). 
They mixed with it, says Humboldt, a little corn flour, vanilla {tlilxo- 
chitl) and a species of spice {mecaxochitl) ; they also possessed the art 
of reducing the chocolate to cakes, which they sold in their markets. 

Another peculiar tropical product is the soap-berry, with which 
the people sometimes wash their clothes. On the bank of the river 
of Cariaco, says Humboldt, " We saw the Indian women washing 
their linen with the fruit of the Sapindus saponaria, or soap-berry, an 
operation said to be very injurious to the linen. The bark of the tree 
produces a strong lather, and the fruit is so elastic that if thrown on a 
stone it rebounds three or four times to the height of seven or eight 
feet. Being of a spherical form, it is employed in making rosaries." 
There are two sorts of trees in the islands and along the coast that 
serve the people with a substitute for soap. The one furnishes it in 
its fruit, and the other in its bark. 

It is along the coast that the poisonous manchineel is found, — a 
veritable upas-tree, for whosoever sleeps beneath its shade will be dread- 
fully poisoned. I recall many a beach of snowy sand, overshadowed 
by the green-leaved manchineel, where the shade seemed so invitingly 
cool that I have been half tempted to recline beneath it. The sand 
beneath the manchineels is strewn with yellow fruit, tempting to the 
sight, but deadly to the taste. I have mentioned one style of fishing 
said to have been in vogue here in ancient times ; another is prevalent 
on these coasts. Finding a manchineel tree near good fishing ground, 



SOMETHING TO EAT, IN THE TROPICS. 



157 



say a small pond or stream, if you break off the branches and throw 
them into the water, it will not be long before the fish therein will 
come to the surface, gasping for breath. They can then be captured ; 
but it must be done quickly, as they soon recover sufficiently to disap- 
pear. The natives say that the manchineel " burns " the fish ; others 
that it deoxygenates the water, at least temporarily. 

Our readers have had much to pardon us for in this rambling 
chapter ; but it has seemed to us that, all these things are interesting. 
If not, then that is an error of ours; we beg your pardon, gentle 
reader, and ask you to turn over a new leaf and peruse the Professor's 
paper on pearls. 




CHAPTER XIII. 



PEARLS OF THE SPANISH MAIN. 

The Professor "Reflects." — Fate of Spanish Explorers. — Americus Vespucius. 

— Pearls by the Pound. — The Pearl-Fisher's Perils. -A Strange Spaniard. 

— Names of the Deity. 




WAS reflecting," said the Professor to me, one 
day, " upon the tragic ending of the lives of most 
of the Spanish leaders who contributed toward the 
discovery of America : Columbus sent home in 
chains, at the end of his third voyage, and finally 
dying in poverty ; Cortez, conqueror of Mexico, 
who, although he had a victorious career, died in obscurity ; Vasco 
Nunez de Balboa, who saw, first of all Europeans, from the mountains 
of Darien, the Pacific, the great southern sea, but who was afterward 
beheaded by an unworthy rival ; Pizarro, assassinated in his own pal- 
ace by his associates, — we cannot say but that he deserved his fate; 
De Soto, explorer of Florida, buried at deep of night in the bosom of 
the Mississippi, for fear that the outraged Indians would discover and 
mutilate his body ; and many others of lesser fame perished miserably 
and by violence." 

It was even so, and could we but follow out our friend's sugges- 
tion, we should find that the Spaniards individually reaped small re- 
ward for their arduous labors. 



PEARLS OF THE SPANISH MAIN. 



159 



The old historian says that they all combined in speaking ill of 
the Indies, because they had not found gold laid up for them to plun- 
der, in chests, or growing on trees. 

It was in the year 1499, as I have already mentioned, that Alonzo 
de Ojeda and Americus Vespucius made their famous voyage along 
the coast of Venezuela; and then "every Indian thought himself 
happy, when they came to ford rivers, if he could carry a Spaniard 
over on his shoulders ; and he that oftenest carried any over looked 
upon himself as most fortunate." Regarding the manner in which the 
name " America " came to be bestowed upon our continent, the royal 
historiographer says, — 

"When King Ferdinand returned to Spain, in 1507, he ordered 
Juan Diaz de Solis, Vincencio Yanez Pinzon, John de la Cosa, and 
Americus Vespucius to come to court, and while some of them were 
sent on voyages of discovery, Vespucius was retained with a good 
salary, to make sea-charts, with the title of chief, pilot. Whence the 
Indies took the name of America, whereas they should have had it 
from Columbus, who was the first discoverer.' 1 

We left Caracas one morning and took the steamer for Trinidad, 
purposing to tarry, if possible, at the pearl islands, Margarita and 
Cubagua. They no longer produce those precious oysters that con- 
tain the beautiful pearls ; but when the Spaniards first came here, in 
1499, they obtained vast quantities of them, and it was many years 
before the oyster beds were exhausted. 

The great Humboldt says: "The situations which since the 
discovery of the new continent have furnished the greatest abundance 
of pearls to the Spaniards are the following : the arm of the sea 
between the islands of Cubagua and Coche and Cumana (on the 
Spanish Main), the mouth of the Rio de la Hacha, the Gulf of 
Panama, near the Islas de las Perlas, and the eastern coast of 
California." 

In 1587, three hundred and sixteen kilograms of pearls were 



i6o 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



imported into Spain, among which were five kilos of the greatest 
beauty, destined for King Philip II. 

The pearl fisheries of Cubagua (Venezuela) and Rio Hacha have 
been very productive, but of short duration. After the beginning 




COLUMBUS, THE FIRST DISCOVERER. 



of the seventeenth century, the pearls of California began to rival 
those of Panama. The California pearls are of a very beautiful water, 
and large, but they are frequently of an irregular figure. The most 
valuable in the possession of the court of Spain were found in 1615 
and 1655. 



PEARLS OF THE SPANISH MAIN. l6l 

In recent years, more pearls have been found in the Gulf of 
California than anywhere else in America. 

On the coast of Lower California an important industry has been 
developed by the pearl fisheries of that remote region. Five mer- 
chants and a thousand daring divers are wearing out their lives in 
supplying the markets of Paris, London, and New York with the rare 
and costly black pearl, which is 'found in a state of great perfection in 
the deep waters off La Paz. The latitude is a little south of Key West, 
in Florida, and not far north of Havana. Since the recent Mexican 
fever began, an increasing public interest has been taken in the 
resources of the ancient empire of the Montezumas, and the gold and 
silver and other precious products of that land are exciting much 
curiosity among American capitalists. As the pearl fisheries of 
Lower California belong to Mexico, they will of course rank among 
the other natural riches of that country. Chief Engineer Magee of 
the United States Navy, who has lately returned from the Gulf of 
California, was found at the Fifth Avenue Hotel recently, in company 
with one of the principal pearl merchants of Mexico, who had just 
arrived from Paris, whither he had been on a mission to dispose of his 
annual harvest of precious stones. This merchant, while hoping to 
see his country developed and American capital, industry, and 
machinery encouraged for this purpose, did not think that the present 
condition of the pearl fisheries of the Gulf of California would warrant 
the investment of more capital or labor. 

The following facts were given during the interview : pearl oysters 
are found from one to six miles from shore in from eight to twenty- 
one fathoms of water. The one thousand divers who are engaged in 
searching for them are generally employed under the contract system, 
as they make greater efforts to discover the pearls than they do when 
hired by the day. Boats, diving apparatus, and money for provisions 
and outfits are supplied by the merchant on condition that all the 
pearls discovered shall be sold to him at such prices as may be agreed 



162 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

upon, — in other words, that he may have the refusal of all the pearls 
found. Sail-boats of five tons' burden and containing six men each 
are fitted up with sleeping and cooking accommodations, and six 
months are devoted to pearl-diving up and down the coast, from May 
until October and November. 

The total product of a year's work is estimated at about five 
hundred thousand dollars, — that is, valuing the pearls at the first cost 
price. The United States is a very poor place to sell pearls of any 
kind, and black pearls, which are most valuable, are bought exclu- 
sively by wealthy and titled people in Europe. St. Petersburg ranks 
next to Paris as a good market for them, while in the United States 
there is a great demand for diamonds of extraordinary value. Of the 
entire yield of Mexican pearls, ten per cent are white, forty per cent 
blue, and fifteen per cent black. The blue stones are of little value. 
The oyster in which the pearl is found has the shape of a large clam, 
or saddle-rock oyster, but it is smooth and brilliant, with all the colors 
of the rainbow. The shells which are known as the mother-of-pearl 
are carried once a year, in ships of two thousand tons, around Cape 
Horn to Hamburg, where they are sold to German merchants and 
manufacturers for sawing into buttons, knife-handles, paper-cutters, and 
a thousand other ornaments for boudoir and studio. Americans are 
beginning to use this material, and it is thought that there will be a 
large demand for pearl-shells in a few years. They are worth from 
four hundred to five hundred dollars per ton. Boston buys more of 
them than any other city in the United States. 

The value of pearls depends entirely upon their size, shape, and 
color, and perfect condition. There can never be an arbitrary schedule 
of prices agreed upon, since for what one man may be willing to pay 
one thousand dollars, another man would not give a tenth part of that 
sum. The Russian nobles are especially fond of rich black pearls, 
which would scarcely find sale in the United States, except as a matter 
of speculation to send abroad. The uncertainties of the fisheries are 




em .. 






£3&U- 






A GIANT OF THE VENEZUELAN FOREST. 



PEARLS OF THE SPANISH MAIN. 1 65 

great. Sometimes it is weeks and even months before a hundred 
dollars' worth of stones are discovered. The choicest pearls found 
during a season are worth from one thousand to five thousand dollars 
apiece. 

The cheapest pearls are sold by weight. Generally pearls are 
about the size of bullets and found in the soft oyster near the place 
where it joins the shell. Then again, just at the close of a long and 
unprofitable season, an experienced diver may find a few pearls worth 
a fortune. Strange things happen down in the wild solitudes of those 
distant fisheries. Poor men sometimes find pearls that a king might 
envy, and if the divers were frugal they could often rise above the 
obscurity of poor pearl fishermen ; but such successes are generally 
followed by dissipation, which soon leaves the man as penniless as he 
was before. 

The Mexican divers of the Gulf of California are said to be the 
most expert in the world. They go down into deep water and remain 
below for a long time. In former times many men were lost in this 
perilous pursuit after submarine treasures. English diving-suits are 
said to be the safest and most satisfactory, and superior to the cele- 
brated French armor, but American hose-pipes are unsurpassed. 
Several years ago a large number of divers lost their lives in one 
season because of the defective English hose-tubing. Since then there 
have not been many serious accidents. The loss of life caused by the 
exposure and hardships of pearl-fishing is considerable, and the men 
generally retire after a few years of active service to spend the rest of 
their wretched days in trying to find relief for a rheumatic paralysis 
which generally closes a pearl-fisher's life. The lower currents of the 
sea, at a depth of eighteen or twenty fathoms, are very cold, even in 
the tropics, while the pressure is oppressive. The blood grows cold 
and thick, so that the joints stiffen, the muscles contract, and only 
the strongest constitutions can long survive the hardships of pearl- 
fishing. 



1 66 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

The divers see a great many sharks, but as a rule, they do 
not fear them, although they sometimes cut or break the pipes 
which supply the men with air from the atmosphere above. The 
danger most dreaded by the brave fishermen is the celebrated devil- 
fish. " They are all we fear," said a merchant. " They lie near 
to the bottom of the sea. At first sight they seem insignificant 
and harmless, but if a diver or the air-pipes come within their 
reach, their long, shadowy tentacles or fingers suddenly clutch the 
object with a powerful, tightening grasp, until the man is crushed 
to death or the hose-pipes cut in twain. 
Many a man has lost his life through 
the wickedness of these devil-fish." 

Some extraordinary pearls have 

lately been found near La ^ -^ 

Paz, in Lower California. — 

Probably the largest pearl 

on record, weighing seventy-five carats, 

was found but a few years ago. The 

fisherman sold it on the spot for four- IN A gum swamp. 

teen thousand dollars, which, however, 

was an insignificant sum compared with its real value. Since then 

two gems, one valued at five thousand dollars and the other at 

three thousand dollars, have been found. 

The steamer passed Cubagua in the night, and hence we could 
not land ; but we were assured by those on board that we should 
not have found anything there at present that our readers would 
care about Some of the Indians of the mainland, we were told, 
still burned incense to their gods, using the native gum, copal. 
This was used also by the natives of Mexico, and derives its name 
from the Mexican copalli. It was in extensive use on the arrival 
of the Spaniards, and had been probably for centuries, as incense, 
before the idols in the temples. There are said to be ten varieties 




PEARLS OF THE SPANISH MAIN. 



167 



of the tree producing this gum, which was used, not only in the 
temples, but in fumigating strangers, and especially ambassadors. 

A strange man, evidently a Spaniard, attracted our attention 
by his eccentric behavior on board. He was poorly dressed, but 
evidently had a well-stored mind, though what it contained was in 
a somewhat disordered state. He surprised us one day by convers- 
ing with three different men in as many different languages, and when 
we expressed ourselves to that effect he said, " Oh, that is nothing ; I 
can speak a dozen dialects, and understand portions of a dozen more. 
Now, for instance, I can give you the name of God, the Creator, in 
four dozen different dialects." Below, as he gave it to us, we append 
the list, and we think it is in the main quite reliable. 



The Name of God in Forty-Eight Languages. 



Hebrew, — Elohim or Eloah. 

Chaldaic, — Elah. 

Assyrian, — Ellah. 

Syriac and Turkish, — Alah. 

Malay, — Alia. 

Arabic, — Allah. 

Language of the Magi, — Orsi. 

Old Egyptian, — Tuet. 

Armenian, — Teuti. 

Modern Egyptian, — Tenn. 

Greek, — Theos. 

Cretan, — Thias. 

^Eolian and Doric, — Hos. 

Latin, — Deus. 

Low Latin, — Diex. 

Celtic and Old Gallic, — Diu. 



French, — Dieu. 

Spanish, — Dios. 

Portuguese, — Deos. 

Old German, — Diet. 

Provencal, — Diou. 

Low Breton, — Doue. 

Italian, — Dio. 

Irish, — Die. 

Olala tongue, — Deu. 

German, — Gott. 

Flemish, — Goed. 

Dutch, — Godt. 

English and Old Saxon, — God. 

Teutonic, — Goth. 

Danish and Swedish, — Gut. 

Norwegian, — Gud. 



* Slavic, — Buch. 
Polish, — Bog. 
Polaca, — Bung. 
Lapp, — Jubinal. 
Finnish, — Jumala. 
Runic, — As. 
Pannonian, — Istu. 
Zemblian, — Fetizo. 
Hindostanee, — Rain. 
Coromandel, — Brama. 
Tartar, — Magatal. 
Persian, — Sire. 
Chinese, — Prussa. 
Japanese, — Goezur. 
Madagascar, — Zannar. 
Peruvian, — Puchocamae. 



" Whatever language it may be in which we address Him," said 
the Professor, " our prayers, I trust, will not be in vain. 



" ' I know not what the future hath 
Of marvel or surprise, 
Assured alone that life and death 
His mercy underlies.' " 



CHAPTER XIV. 

WITH COLUMBUS AND SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 

Mouth of the Orinoco. — The Serpent's Mouth. — The Golden Mountains. — Sir 
Walter Raleigh. — El Dorado the Golden. — Lost Roanoke. — Oysters grow- 
ing on Trees. — Alligators and Serpents. — The Greyhound of the Sea. 

" Where down the purple slope that slants 
Across the hills, the sunrays glance 
With hot stare through the coco-trees, 
And wine-palms tent beside the seas, 
There Port-of- Spain, long leagues away, 
Glows in the mellow mist of day." 

|E sailed into the harbor of Trinidad's capital, Port- 
of-Spain, just as the sun sank behind the purpling 
mountains. Perhaps some of our readers may re- 
member that we once touched here several years 
ao-o. You will remember too that the island 
Trinidad was discovered by Columbus on his 

third voyage. 

On the last day of July, 1498, two months from the day the Span- 
ish fleet had sailed from Cadiz, the mountains of Trinidad were 
sighted. We may distrust the statement of Columbus that he had 
previously concluded to honor the first land discovered on this voyage 
with the name of the Trinity, in view of the fact that the mountains 
first seen were three in number, and naturally suggested the name, 
La Trinidad. 




WITH COLUMBUS AND SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 



169 



Columbus, as we are aware, was much given to the setting forth 
of coincidences showing him one under special guidance of the Lord. 
However, it was a harmless vanity, and this name, like most of those 
bestowed by the admiral, was fitting and suggestive. 




LANDING OF COLUMBUS AT TRINIDAD. 



Coasting the island, he entered a narrow pass where the waters 
met and clashed so furiously that even his high courage was shaken, 
and he called this the Serpent's Mouth (La Boca del Sierpe). He 
passed out of it in safety and anchored in the smooth water of the 
great Gulf of Paria, and on the inner coast of Trinidad. Crossing the 
gulf, he emerged into the Caribbean Sea through another dangerous 
passage which he called La Boca del Draco, the Mouth of the 



170 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

Dragon. Before venturing upon this terrible passage he coasted the 
Gulf of Paria, discovering there a fine race of people, tall, straight, 
shapely, the men with loin-cloths in various colors, the women entirely 
naked. They were frank and hospitable, and dwelt in a rich and 
generous country, their dwellings in beautiful gardens, where the 
birds and flowers vied in abundance and brilliancy of color. 

They possessed little gold and that of inferior quality, but they 
wore strings of pearls that made the Spaniards' fingers itch and burn 
with strong desire. Finding that the pearls were obtained off the 
north coast of Paria, Columbus at last ventured to brave the dangers 
of the Dragon's Mouth, through which the waters of the Orinoco and 
other South American rivers rushed with frightful velocity. He 
escaped through the warring breakers and found smoother seas be- 
yond. He found also the seat of the pearl fishery, though he was 
then ignorant of its value or extent, and discovered the islands, Mar- 
garita and Cubagua, so celebrated in later years for their beds of 
pearls. The Spaniards did not stop to fish, but obtained a large 
number of pearls by traffic with the Indians, in exchange for bits of 
porcelain and bells of brass. Sufficient were obtained, in fact, to 
tempt the cupidity of other Spaniards, and to attract attention to this 
region of riches, now for the first time brought to the view of the 
world. 

Although the indications were promising and the north coast of 
the continent stretched invitingly away, with mountains reared against 
the clouds and islands fringing the coast, yet the navigator was sore 
pressed by disease, and his stores were failing, so the fleet set sail for 
the fair Island of Hispaniola. 

Of the people here discovered, the ancient historian writes 
quaintly, "They are white even as our men are, saving such as are 
much conversant with the sun. They are also very gentle and full of 
humanitie towards strangers. There was f ewe or none that had not 
eyther a collar, a chayne, or a bracelette of golde and pearles, and 



WITH COLUMBUS AND SIR WALTER RALEIGH. IJl 

many had all. Other than these ornaments, except for a breech-cloth 
of cotton, they were naked. . . . The regions being in the large pro- 
vince of Paria, for the space of CCXX myles, are called of the inhabi- 
tants Cumana & Mancapana" 

Reflecting upon the divers species of man, the old historian, 
Hakluyt, thus delivers himself, " The Aethiopian thinketh the blacke 
colour to be fairer than white, and the white man thinketh otherwise. 
Hee that is polled thinketh himself more amaiable than hee that 
weareth long hayre, and the bearded man supposeth himself more 
comely than hee that wanteth a beard. As appetite therefore moueth, 
and not as reason persuadeth, do men run into these vanities." 

It was on the voyage preceding this that Columbus had made the 
acquaintance of the cannibals, the Caribs of the Caribbee Islands, and 
had heard of Amazons. From the coast of Paria he stood north- 
wardly toward Hispaniola. " By the way, there appeared from the 
north a great Hand, which the captives that were taken off Hispaniola 
called Madinino [now known as Montserrat], affirming it to be in- 
habited only with women." 

It was on his return voyage to Spain that Columbus carried cap- 
tive the King of the Golden Mountains, Caonabo, " who dyed on the 
voyage, for very pensivenesse and anguish of minde." Then also he 
encountered one of those dreadful tempests called hurricanes : " These 
tempests of the ay re, which the Grecians called Tip hones, — that is, 
whirlevvindes, — the Indians called Furacanes." 

I did not intend to digress ; but whatever I have cited is in a 
measure cognate to our subject. Christopher Columbus, on that 
eventful third voyage to America, drew nearer to the Equator than 
before ; and filled with the belief that he was penetrating a region of 
fire and drought, he was astonished to find verdurous vegetation, 
plentiful showers, and habitable islands. Learned theorists had as- 
sured him that in the tropical area everything would be found subli- 
mated to the last degree. 



172 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

Hence, it would be productive of pearls and precious stones," espe- 
cially emeralds and diamonds, sublimated in telluric crucibles. He 
was not, then, astonished at the abundance of pearls. Was it not the 
wise Pliny who taught that pearls were the product of oysters, into 
whose mouths the dews of heaven fell at night ? Even so ; and the 
great navigator found oysters so numerous that he saw them clinging 
to the roots and branches of trees. And we may find them to-day in 
these same waters, — oysters growing on trees ; but they are not the 
bivalves that yield the precious pearls. 

Nearly one hundred years later than Columbus, another voyager, 
also world-famous now, came to this Island of Trinidad. This was 
Sir Walter Raleigh, who, leaving England Feb. 6, 1595, arrived at 
Trinidad the 2 2d of March, in the same year. The record of his 
adventures is styled, " The Discoverie of the large, rich, and beautiful 
Empire of Guiana, with a relation of the Great and Golden City of 
Manoa, which the Spaniards called El Dorado, performed in the year 
1 595, by Sir Walter Ralegh, Knight." 

Now, the first English vessels that visited the West Indies after 
their discovery were two ships of war, under Sebastian Cabot and 
Sir Thomas Pert, in 15 16 or 15 17. Two years afterward the first 
English trading vessel arrived at Puerto Rico. Capt. John Hawkins 
followed in 1565, and Capt. Francis Drake in 1572; but neither 
attempted to form a settlement. " This was reserved for Sir Walter 
Raleigh, to whom belongs the honor of founding England's colonial 
empire." Raleigh's first expedition to the New World was in 1584, 
landing on the coast of North Carolina. In 1585 the settlement was 
formed at Roanoke, but next year the settlers were taken off by Sir 
Francis Drake in a destitute condition, and carried to England. In 
1587 one hundred and twenty colonists were left at Roanoke; the 
governor returned to England for supplies, but the apprehensions in 
England regarding the coming of the Spanish Armada prevented 
relief being sent, and when finally a vessel reached Roanoke, in 1589, 



WITH COLUMBUS AND SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 



173 



it was too late. Nevermore were seen by white men those lost colo- 
nists of Roanoke ! But to return to Sir Walter's expedition to South 
America : He was in search of El Dorado, the gold-covered capital of 
which was said to be built upon a vast lake, surrounded by mountains 







SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 



glistening with gold. And it was ruled by a prince also covered with 
gold, " powdered from head to foot, so that he resembled a golden god, 
worked by the hands of a skillful artist." Raleigh captured a canoe, 
or canoa, laden with great store of bread made from the cassava. They 
landed upon " a faire sand, where we found thousands of Tortugas' 
[turtles'] eggs, which are very wholesome meat and very restoring." 



174 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

Raleigh's observations prove him to have been accurate and pains- 
taking, and it was a loss to posterity that he did not carry out his 
great scheme of conquest and colonization. You will perhaps recall 
his famous excuse for not penetrating farther into the interior of 
Guiana : " Considering that to enter Guiana by small boats, to depart 
four or five hundred miles from my ships, and to leave a garrison [Span- 
ish] interested in the same enterprise, who also daily expected supplies 
out of Spaine, I should have savoured very much of the Asse ! " 

He discovered, in the Gulf of Paria, oysters growing on trees, as 
follows : — 

" In the way between were divers little brooks of fresh water, and 
one of salt, that had store of oisters upon the branches of the trees, 
and were very salt and well tasted. All their oisters grow upon those 
boughs and spraies, and not on the ground." 

Referring to alligators, he says, — 
" There were thousands of those uglie serpents ; I had a Negro, 
a very proper young fellow, that, leaping out of the galley to swim in 
the river, was, in all our sights, taken and devoured with one of those 
Largatos." 

The products of the sea yield the coast-dwellers of Venezuela a 
better living than the earth products to the dweller in the interior. 
The numerous fish, oysters, and turtles supply all the tables. 

I wonder if any of my readers ever heard of the process of setting 
a fish to catch a fish ? It was in use several hundred years ago, and 
I take the account from the old book to which I have referred: 

" Nowe shall you heare a newe kinde of fishing. Like as wee with 
Greyhoundes doe hunt Hares in the playne fieldes, so doo they, as it 
were with a hunting fishe, take other fishes. This fish was of shape 
or fourme vnknown to vs, but the body thereof not vnlike a great 
yeele, hanging on the hinder parte of the head a very tough skinne, 
like vnto a great bagge or purse. This fish is tyed by the side of the 
boat with a corde, let down so farre into the water that the fish may 



WITH COLUMBUS AND SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 



175 



He close by the keel or bottome of the same, for shee may in no case 
abide the sight of the ayre. Thus When they espie any great fish or 
Tortoyse, they let the corde at length, and when she feeleth herself 
loosed, shee invadeth the fish or Tortoyse as swiftly as an arrow, and 
when she hath once fas- 
tened her hold, she cast- 
eth the purse of skinne, 
and by drawing the 
same together, so grasp- 
eth her pray that no 
man's strength is suf- 
ficient to unloose the 
same, except by little 
and little drawing the 
lyne, she bee lifted 
somewhat above the 
brimme of the water, 
where, as soon as she 
seeth the brightnesse of 
the ayre, she letteth go 
her holde." 

The whole coast of 
Guiana, at that time, be- 
tween the Amazon and 
the Orinoco was called 
Caribania, or the wild 
coast, and is supposed 

to have received its name from beino- the chief residence of the 
Caribs. The Spaniards did everything in their power to annoy and 
even to exterminate the poor Indians ; but Sir Walter treated them 
humanely. He says in his defence,— 

" I protest, before the majesty of the living God, that I neither 




EXECUTION OF RALEIGH. 



176 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



know nor believe that any of our companie, one or other, did violence 
to the Indian women ; and yet we saw many hundreds, and had many 
in our power, and of these very young and excellently favored, which 
came among us without deceit. Nothing got us more love among 
them than this usage, for I suffered not any man to take from anie 
of the natives so much as a Pina, or a Potato root, without giving 
them contentment." Poor Sir Walter! Returning to England not 
long after, he met his doom at the hands of the executioner, and his 
schemes of conquest came to nought. 







CHAPTER XV. 

UP AND DOWN THE ORINOCO. 

Boundaries of Venezuela. — Moonrise on the Sea. — Tree-Dwelling Indians. — 
An Old Cacique. — Catlin, the Indian's Friend. — City of Bolivar. — Wild 
Birds of the Esteros. — The Carib. Fish. — Electric Eels and Wagon-Birds. 




F I might be permitted to drop into statistics a little, 
I might tell the reader what no doubt he already 
knows, that Venezuela is bounded on the north by 
the Caribbean Sea, on the south by the Empire of 
Brazil, east by British Guiana, and west by the 
Republic of Colombia. Its situation, between i° 
40' south and 12 26' north, brings it within the tropics. The 
Venezuelan divides the entire territory into zones : the farming zone, 
the cattle-breeding, and the uncultivated, — the last being as exten- 
sive as both the others, and the whole giving an area of 1,552,741 
square kilometers. The country is mainly drained by one great river, 
the Orinoco, and its tributaries, — the only isolated section being that 
draining into the great Lake Maracaibo. It is of the Lower Orinoco 
that this chapter will treat, — a river whose source no white man has 
yet discovered. 

At the Port-of-Spain, the steamers of the Orinoco meet and con- 
nect with those that cruise along the Spanish Main. We lay in the 
harbor through several days, but at last, one hot and sweltering 
afternoon, we changed from the coast to the river steamer. And 
what a glorious night succeeded to that long hot afternoon ! Just 
at sunset, as the belt of crimson cloud lay girdling the horizon, I 



12 



178 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN 

caught my first sight of the new moon of May (or of April, as you may 
choose to call it). It was just the faintest crescentic line of silver, drawn 
against the blushing sky, — a hint of argent only on the roseate field. 
It might have been the maiden moon of the universe, so pure it 
looked, so chaste, and almost spirituelle. Below it, at an angle, 
gleamed goldenly a lustrous planet, beneath which yet again a silver 
star. A great bank of crimson clouds formed beneath them that 
spread wider and wider, and reached out its arms till it nearly encir- 
cled the horizon, all the time losing its color, becoming paler and 
paler, till of a sudden I noticed that the cloud-bank was purple, and 
the sky above was deepening into blue. Then the purple cloud-bank 
advanced upon the silver star, and swallowed it; it moved yet farther, 
toward the golden planet, which hung tremblingly on its brink awhile, 
then disappeared; and at last the virgin moon gave up the effort to 
illumine the night, and hid her face behind the cloud. 

The Orinoco, as you know, is over fifteen hundred miles in 
length and drains over three hundred square miles of territory. It is 
navigable over eight hundred miles, although comparatively little is the 
commerce of this great river. Its broad delta reaches out its numerous 
fingers opposite and south of the island Trinidad, and up one of the 
northern branches the steamer takes its course. The scenery is dreary 
and uninteresting, and there is little to reward the traveller, unless he 
has the courage and the time to penetrate to the Upper Orinoco, 
where the great forests are. It is said to have been ascended for the 
first time by white men by Diego de Ordaz, in the year 15350 Sir 
Walter Raleigh sailed up some distance, and his descriptions yet hold 
good, for nothing changes here. His attention was particularly called 
to the tree-dwelling Indians, whose frail shelters are built aloft to avoid 
the rising floods. In the winter, he says, "they dwell upon the trees, 
where they have very artificial townes and villages, for between May 
and September the river Orenoke riseth thirtie foote upright ; and for 
this cause they are forced to live in this manner." They must have 




"Ill 






lb 



mtm 





..;,;■ ,...,„■„;■ :,:,;, ; :.. :' : V! :.!i;r::. ,, : ^ :i " ' ', " ^ 



UP AND DOWN THE ORINOCO. l8l 

pretty hard times in securing food enough to eat, and are said to sub- 
sist mainly upon the tops of the palmist ! es, or cabbage-palms. 

Raleigh heard also of Indians with eyes in their shoulders and 
mouths in their breasts; and of course stories were brought him of 
the fierce Amazons, or fighting women of the Upper Orinoco and the 
river Amazon; but he himself did not see either the monsters 
% or the fierce females. He speaks of meeting a fine old Indian, a 
cacique, or chief, who elicited his admiration by his quaint speech : 
" He desired leave to depart, saying that he had far to go, that he was 
old and weak, and was every day called for by death? 

Sir Walter speaks of an animal I have mentioned, the cachicamo, 
or armadillo. I suppose the Venezuelan or Guianian name of the arma- 
dillo may have been carried to the islands of the West Indies, by the 
Arawaak Indians, who once occupied those islands and were driven out 
by the Caribs. They call themselves Aru, or Aruwa (says the travel- 
ler, Schomburgh), which is the name of the American tiger or jaguar. 

" The Arawaak Indian is fairer than either the Carib or Warau, and 
the females, taken as a tribe, are the handsomest of all the Guianians." 

The famous traveller and artist, Mr. Catlin, makes mention of some 
very attractive Indians he once met far in the interior of South 
America, the Zurumatis of the Upper Amazon: — 

" They had no clothing whatever on them, but wishing to appear 
in full dress, they had very curiously and beautifully painted their 
round and pretty limbs with vermilion and other bright colors, 
and encircled their waists with kilts of long and sweet-scented 
grass, in beautiful braids, which also ornamented their ankles, wrists, 
and necks. Tastefully arranged wreaths of evergreen encircled their 
heads and waists, bright with orchids and other wild blossoms of 
the richest bloom and odors ; while their long and glossy black 
hair, which is generally kept in braids, was loosened and spread 
in lovely waves over their naked breasts and shoulders. Gayety, 
modesty, and pride were imprinted on every one of their faces 



182 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

and evinced in all their movements, which were natural and ex- 
ceedingly graceful." 

This remarkable man, Catlin, who made an immense collection 
of paintings of Indians, and who studied them all his life, was 
their most enthusiastic friend. The American Indians, he says, 
" made the white man always welcome to the best they had. Honest 
without laws, with no jails or poorhouses, free from religious ani- 
mosities, in their natural state they rarely steal, never swear, nor 
take the name of God in vain. They don't live for money; they 
keep their own without locks and keys. They never fought a battle 
with white men except on their own ground. All may mourn 
when -these people are swept from the earth; and the artists of 
future ages may look in vain for another race so picturesque in 
their costume, their weapons, colors, manly games, and the chase. 
The native grace, simplicity, and dignity of these natural people 
so much resemble the ancient sculptures that we are irresistibly 
led to believe that the Grecian sculptors had similar models to 
study from ; the toga, tunic, bow, shield, lance, similar to those 
of ancient times, convince us that a second and strictly classic 
era is now passing from the world." 

Breasting the turbid flood, our steamer forced her way to the 
chief town on the river Ciudad Bolivar, formerly known as Angostura. 
It was founded in 1764, and now contains about twelve thousand 
inhabitants. This place is the outlet of the famous gold mines 
of Suruari, where a great deal of English capital has been spent. 
Gold has been found here in great quantities, but it has cost the 
lives of thousands of miners. These mines, doubtless known to 
the Indians in ancient times, furnished the gold that gave rise to 
the stories of the mythical city, El Dorado the Golden. All the 
great country back of Bolivar sends its products here, — gold, cacao, 
coffee, hides, goat and deer skins, tonka-beans, oils, and drugs, which 
are carried away by the steamers to the coast. A very profitable 







■ mimiB: .: :!.,,' ' < ; "■ ' :' , ; : : , ■ ■ ', ,, ; :; . . : , *|||f ; §m ; > ; * S^|J^^2) 




UP AND DOWN THE ORINOCO. 1 85 

traffic is that in stuffed birds ; probably millions of beautiful birds 
are slaughtered in the forests, brought here and then sent out to 
supply the demands of the world of fashion. 

Barbaric Indians, with shot-guns and blow-guns, hunt down these 
lovely creatures merely that frivolous women may wear their plumage 
on their hats. We can hardly blame the Indian, because he gains 
subsistence by the cruel trade ; but the women who wear these 
skins are supposed to be civilized, yet they deck themselves out 
in feathers like their more ignorant Indian sisters. 

Trinidad Island used to be the headquarters of the bird traffic, 
but the Government has recently forbidden the slaughter of the 
innocents, and the aerial visitors are again haunting the woods. 
Bolivar is hot and unhealthy, and not at all interesting, so we 
did not tarry any longer than the steamer did. If there had been 
time, and if we had thought it possible to include the head-waters 
of the Orinoco and the Amazons in this book, we should have 
pushed on ; but we are already rather beyond the limits assigned 
us, and must soon return to the Spanish Main. 

Higher up the Orinoco begin the perennial meadows of Venezuela, 
called Esteros, to which resort hosts of water-fowl, such as ducks, 
herons, storks, ibises, and the wild jabiru, — a bird with long javelin- 
like bill and soldier-like bearing, tall and stately. Animals of all kinds 
are found here, many of which come to prey upon the birds ; and 
exceedingly abundant in the streams and pools are the alligators, 
enormous anacondas, and electric eels. 

The most horrible pests of the streams are the caribs, of about 
the size, shape, and color of a gold-fish. They swarm in myriads, 
and are so voracious that they attack nearly everything living that 
enters the water where they dwell. They may be called sharks in 
miniature, having a mouth enormously large in proportion to their 
size, which opens like a steel trap. It is set about with sharp teeth ; 
and when they close them together, a piece of flesh is always torn out 



186 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

of their victim. The taste of blood seems to enrage them, and the 
spread of it attracts thousands immediately, so that in a very short 
time they will strip the flesh entirely from the bones of man or beast. 

It is said that even the alligators, with their scaly armor, are 
not safe from these little monsters, for when in their fights blood 
is drawn from one of them, the caribs speed to the source of it 
and tear open the wound with their teeth. Their jaws are so strong 
and their teeth so sharp that they can bite a strong fish-hook in 
two with the greatest ease. It was a funny scene we one day 
witnessed out on the plain. A herd of cows had been driven 
up to one of the Llaneros huts, and two men went out to milk. 
They did not seem to expect much, for they carried a small vessel 
for it; nor did the cows look as though they could yield much. 

One of the men threw a lasso over the horns of a cow and dragged 
her up to a tree. Passing the lasso over a limb, the men hoisted the 
cow bodily until her hind-feet hardly touched the ground. It was a 
barbarous proceeding, but the ranchmen said that was the only way 
to make a cow give down her milk. Then they proceeded to milk 
the poor beast, letting her down occasionally to rest, but hoisting 
her up again whenever she refused to allow the milk to* flow. 

We might speak of the electric eels, that inhabit the shallow 
ponds where cattle and horses come down to drink, and some- 
times administer terrible shocks. These of course have been so 
often described that we could give nothing new about them. 
There was noticed a curious bird, called the canctero, or wagon- 
bird, because the male and female, one with a hoarse quack and 
the other with a shrill cry, imitate the rattling and squeaking of 
cart-wheels, 

But we must bring this sketchy and imperfect account of our Ori- 
noco journey to a close, and hasten back to the coast, where we will in 
the next chapter pursue the ghosts of dead and departed buccaneers. 




M*iMMkm^ 



CHAPTER XVI. 



PIRATES AND BUCCANEERS. 




The Origin of the Buccaneers and Freebooters. — Gold-Laden Galleons. — The 
Golden Crab. — Sea-Rovers of Jamaica. — Tortuga, the Pirates' Paradise. — 
Peter the Great. — No Prey, no Pay. — Share and Share alike. — Fiends let 
loose. — The Sack of Maracaibo. — Lolonois. — Henry Morgan. — Capture of 
Panama. — A Diet of Leather. — Horrible Cruelty. 

T is now many, many years since the last pirate sailed 

along the Spanish Main, but two hundred years ago 

this coast was the resort of the most bloodthirsty 

crews that ever cut a sailor's throat. It might hurt 

the English pride to call the great Sir Francis 

Drake a pirate ; but the Spaniards, who suffered 

from his depredations, styled him nothing less. His 

great field of operations was on the coasts of the Caribbean Sea, and 

especially the Spanish Main. Hawkins and Davis were also engaged in 

piratical warfare upon the cities and commerce of the King of Spain. 

But we will not put these old worthies in the pillory now, for after 
them came a class of pirates that made this region more infamous 
than any of their exploits. The buccaneers, who had their origin and 
their dens in the islands of the Caribbean Sea, will be the subject of 
this chapter. They had their origin about the year 1630, when the 
English and French settlers of the island of St. Kitts were dis- 
persed by the Spaniard, Don Frederic of Toledo, on his way to 
Brazil. In 1665 a French company purchased St. Kitts, St. Cruz, 



190 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



and St. Barts from the Knights of Malta. But the dispersed islanders 
had joined together long before, and formed a piratical colony on the 
Island of Tortuga. Some Dutch refugees here joined them, and they 
styled themselves the " Brethren of the Sea," and considered the Span- 
iards as their common enemy. Tortuga was a relatively small island, 




DRAKE'S LIEUTENANT ON A PIRATICAL CRUISE. 



not far distant from Hayti, or Hispaniola. As the latter island 
swarmed with wild cattle, and was thinly inhabited by Spanish settlers, 
part of the " brethren " invaded Hayti and hunted the cattle for their 
hides and meat. Another portion of the pirate company waylaid 
merchant vessels in the narrow channels between Hayti, Cuba, and 
Puerto Rico. 



PIRATES AND BUCCANEERS. 



I 9 I 



They were very poor at first, and made their excursions in little 
boats, from which fact they were called " freebooters," from the Dutch 
word freiboteros, or little boats. Their more common name, bucca- 
neers, is derived from boucaniere, a corruption of botican, which 
means to cook meat in the barbarous manner peculiar to the Caribs in 
their cannibal feasts. They at first had no houses, only frail huts 
called ajoupas, the Indian word for 
lodge, or camp. In the year 1638 
the Spaniards destroyed their set- 
tlement, but it was soon rebuilt. 

At that time the Spaniards 
traded between their own country, 
Spain, and their colonies by means 
of great fleets of galleons, or im- 
mense three or four decker ships, 
each carrying about fifty guns. 
Seville, in Spain, was the port from 
which the flota, or merchant fleet, 
sailed every year until the river 
Guadalquivir filled up, and then it 
sailed from Cadiz. After 1732, 
they sent out register ships. The 
annual fleet from Cadiz was com- 
posed of sixteen merchantmen of from five hundred to six hundred 
tons' burden, and convoyed by three men-of-war. 

It was about 1540 that the prosperity of San Domingo, or Hayti, 
began to decline and the gold mines to fail. It was in 1586 that 
Drake was sent out by Queen Elizabeth to do all the harm he could 
to Spanish shipping. In the year 1655 Oliver Cromwells general, 
Penn, met with repulse at San Domingo. The defeat was aided by 
an army of crabs, their clattering claws in the darkness being mis- 
taken by the soldiers for the hoof-beats of advancing cavalry. It is 




SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. 



192 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

said that the thankful Dominicans carried a gold crab in one of their 
religious processions after that, in token of their indebtedness. 

One of the first piratical expeditions that met with rich reward was 
to the Gulf of Florida. One of the Spanish galleons laden with silver 
from South America was sunk in a storm. Two years later the Span- 
iards of Havana in Cuba, sent divers to the wreck and recovered some 
millions of dollars. This they took to Havana ; but a party of sea- 
rovers sailed from Jamaica in two ships and three sloops, and captured 
about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars which had been left 
under guard of sixty soldiers. The sea-rovers came to anchor, and 
landing three hundred men on the little island where the treasure was 
stored, they attacked the guard, seized the silver, and made off with it 
toward Jamaica. On their way they met with a Spanish ship laden 
with cochineal, indigo, and silver to the amount of sixty thousand 
dollars, and all this they appropriated, letting the vessel go. There 
was peace between England and Spain at that time ; and as Jamaica 
was an English island, the Governor of Cuba demanded restitution. 
This the Governor of Jamaica could not deny, and so the freebooters 
put to sea, turning pirates in good earnest and pillaging every vessel 
they caught. 

The Island of Tortuga lies to the north of Hayti, and was so called 
by the Spaniards because in general shape it resembles a great sea- 
tortoise, called by them Tortuga-de-mer. It is mountainous and 
wooded, and owing to the difficulty of great ships getting into its 
harbors, was selected by the buccaneers as their rendezvous. Some 
of them cultivated the scanty soil and went hunting, but the greater 
part secured their riches by plundering passing ships. At one time 
it swarmed with wild dogs, descendants of the fierce bloodhounds 
brought by the Spaniards years before to hunt the Indians. In 1668 
the governor of the island tried to poison them, but could not succeed 
in exterminating them, and gave up the attempt. The first pirate of 
Tortuga was called Peter the Great, a native of France. With one 



PIRATES AND BUCCANEERS. 195 

boat and twenty-eight men, he took the great ship of the vice-admiral 
of the Spanish fleet. They crept up to the sides of the ship in the 
dark, and while the men were making ready to board her, the pirates' 
surgeon was boring holes in their own boat so that they could not by 
any means escape. 

With a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other, they climbed 
up the sides of the ship and ran all together into the great cabin, where 
they found the captain and companions playing cards. Here they 
put a pistol to his breast and commanded him to deliver up the ship. 

The Spaniards, surprised to see the pirates, as if they had come 
out of the sea, exclaimed, " Heaven help us ! are these devils, or what 
are they ? " Some of them took possession of the arms and gun-room, 
killed all who opposed them, and soon had the ship at their mercy. 

This rich prize, taken so easily, set the planters of Tortuga all afire, 
and nearly all turned pirates at once, going out in their canoes and 
capturing such vessels as came in their way. 

It was the custom with the pirates of Tortuga, when on the eve of 
an expedition, to send notice to all concerned to assemble at the place 
of embarkation and bring as much powder and ball as they could. 
Then they stole all the pork they could lay hands on, dried the flesh 
of cattle, and salted down tortoise-meat for the voyage. 

Before the vessel left the harbor, it was settled just what proportion 
of the prospective spoils each member of the crew was to have. 
Their motto was, " No prey, no pay ! " Having secured the prey, it 
was to be divided as follows: — 

The captain's share first, then the carpenter, or shipwright, and 
the surgeon, afterward the common crew. They mutually agreed 
also what each one should be entitled to for loss of limb, or wounds. 
For the loss of a right arm, six hundred pieces of eight, or six slaves; 
for the left arm, five hundred ; for right leg, five hundred; left leg, four 
hundred ; for an eye, one hundred, or one slave, and for a finger the 
same. These damages were promptly paid out of the first of their 



I96 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN 

ill-gotten gains. They sometimes secured rich prizes, and made 
money enough from a single voyage to keep them in comfort the rest 
of their lives ; but they always squandered it as soon as their vessel 
returned to port. Their time ashore was spent in the most revolting- 
debauchery. Some of them would throw away thousands of dollars in 
a single night, and in the morning not have enough to buy one of 
them a shirt. One of the pirates, landing at Jamaica from a success- 
ful expedition, bought a barrel of wine and placed it in the middle of 
the street, compelling every passer-by to drink. 

One of the most bloodthirsty of the Tortuga cut-throats was 
Francis Lolonois, who had narrow escapes from death on the coasts 
of Cuba and Campeche, and who, being condemned to death by the 
authorities of a place, escaped, and soon captured the very men 
who had sentenced him, cutting their heads off, every one. 

Casting about for a place to sack and ruin, he concluded upon 
Maracaibo, the city of Venezuela to which we ourselves will go in one 
of the chapters following. 

Maracaibo was defended by a castle, near the entrance of the 
great lake on which it is situated, but this was quickly taken by 
Lolonois and his desperate crew, who then marched upon the city. 
All the inhabitants fled to the forests, for they had had dealings with 
pirates before ; but the pirates captured several of them and hacked 
one of them to pieces before the rest, promising to serve them all the 
same way unless they revealed where they had hidden their treasures. 
But they got so little that they sailed up the lake to a city called 
Gibraltar, where the people made such desperate resistance that when 
the pirates overcame them they murdered nearly all. Most of their 
prisoners they shut up in a church and left them there to die of 
starvation.. 

At last the pirates sailed away, leaving behind them suffering and 
misery, hundreds of murdered people and ruined homes. It may 
be considered a righteous retribution that Lolonois and nearly all 



§■■ 




"THE PEOPLE. MADE A DESPERATE RESISTANCE. 



PIRATES AXD BUCCANEERS. i^ 

the miserable crew that went with him were massacred on the coast 
of Nicaragua. 

Retributive justice, it seems, did not always overtake these scoun- 
drels in this world, though their horrible acts of cruelty certainly 
called for the extremest penalties. The pirate who excelled all the 
rest in deeds of blood, and who robbed and murdered thousands of 
innocent people, instead of being punished, was in the end rewarded. 
We refer to Morgan, the buccaneer leader. He was an Englishman 
by birth, the son of a Welsh farmer. He had no desire to pursue the 
peaceful calling of his father, but when quite young, shipped on board 
a vessel bound for Barbadoes. Living there some time, he at last 
reached Jamaica, where, being unemployed and in poverty, he joined a 
pirate-ship. 

After three or four voyages his profits were so great that he joined 
a company, and they bought a ship of their own. Their first cruise, 
along the coast of Campeche, was a success, and they brought several 
rich prizes into Jamaica. 

Another pirate, named Mansvelt, was then fitting out a fleet of 
piratical craft, and he became so much impressed with Morgan's fit- 
ness as commander that he appointed him vice-admiral, with a fleet of 
fifteen ships and five hundred men. They ravaged a portion of 
the coast and sacked a city of Cuba, treating the inhabitants with 
extreme cruelty. 

The next object of the pirates' greed was the city of Puerto Bello, 
near the Gulf of Darien. It was strongly fortified, and the garrison 
made a desperate defence, but finally the city fell, through fire and 
sword. The governor shut himself up in a castle, and repulsed every 
attempt of the pirates to get possession, until finally the wretches 
compelled the nuns and priests of a convent to lead the way with 
scaling-ladders which they placed against the walls. Many of these 
innocent people were killed in this attempt, but that mattered little to 
the pirates, who, after the castle was taken and the governor killed, 



200 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

% 

gave themselves up to every variety of horrible debauchery. Not find- 
ing all the treasure they had expected, the pirates put many citizens 
to the torture, so that many died on the rack. At last they sailed 
away to Jamaica with their rich spoil, and there wasted in a few days 
what they had taken such great trouble to procure. It was not long 
after that a vessel containing over three hundred of these pirates was 
blown up by accident in the harbor of Port Royal ; thus were avenged 
the poor people of Puerto Bello. 

Perhaps the greatest of Morgan's deeds was the taking of the 
famous city of Panama, where the bravery and determination of his 
ferocious followers received such reward as few fighters obtain in a. 
better cause. Before setting out on the long march over the isthmus, 
Morgan assaulted and captured the castles defending the coast on the 
Atlantic side. He took the castle of Chagres after heavy fighting, 
and it is said that its capture w r as only consummated by an accident. 
One of the pirates was shot through by an arrow, that went in at his 
back and came out at his breast. Pulling it out, he wound some 
cotton about it and rammed it into his musket and fired it back at. 
the castle. Now it so happened that the cotton about the arrow took 
fire from the powder and kindled the thatch of some houses, whence 
the blaze extended to a magazine of powder, and blew up part of the 
fort. 

It was in August, 1670, that Morgan left the castle of Chagres, 
with twelve hundred men, in five boats and thirty-two canoes, deter- 
mined upon the capture of Panama. The Spaniards of the country 
got wind of their coming, and left not a particle of food on their line 
of march, so that the miserable pirates nearly starved, only saving 
themselves by devouring some leather sacks they found, and leather 
boots. They even fought one another for bits of leather to eat. One 
of them describes the manner of preparing this harsh food. First 
they sliced the leather in pieces, then beat it between two stones and 
rubbed it, often dipping it in water to make it supple and tender;. 



PIRATES AND BUCCANEERS. 203 

lastly, they scraped off the hair, and broiled it. Being thus cooked, 
they cut it into small morsels and ate it, helping it down with frequent 
gulps of water. 

Almost the only resistance they encountered by the way was from 
the wild Indians, armed only with arrows, who would let fly at them 
from the rocks, crying out, Ai perros ! a la saxana ! a la saxana ! 
(" Ha, dogs ! go to the plain, go to the plain ! "), meaning by this that 
when the pirates should reach the plain on which Panama was built 
they would find the Spaniards prepared for them. The ninth day of 
this terrible march they were rejoiced at the view of the Pacific, and 
the city of their desires, beyond the plain. Descending into the plain, 
the famished wretches killed cattle and donkeys, and feasted on 
their flesh, and the next day they were sufficiently recovered from 
their sufferings to attack the Spanish force drawn up to receive 
them. 

Even the fearless buccaneers were filled with apprehension at sight 
of the large army drawn up before the city ; but they attacked with 
their usual ferocity and put the Spaniards to rout, notwithstanding the 
latter so outnumbered them. Even a great troop of wild bulls that 
the Spaniards tried to drive against the pirates turned upon their 
former masters and helped to win the day for the sea monsters. But 
history has given us the result, and told of the destruction of this great 
city of the South Sea, with its houses lined with cedar-wood and its 
vast wealth. Not satisfied with its plunder and the torturing of its 
inhabitants, Morgan set fire to the city. 

The plunder was vast, and the pirates plunged into every sort of 
debauchery and wickedness. But though they obtained great treasure, 
they were much grieved to learn that during the time they were 
drunken with wine and lust, a galleon escaped the city, and sailed away, 
richly laden with all the king's plate and jewels. On board this 
galleon also were the religious women of the nunnery, with all the 
rich ornaments of their church, and gold and silver plate of great 



204 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



value. Morgan was so enraged at the escape of this galleon with 
its precious freight that he raved like a madman, and repeatedly 
despatched boats in its pursuit. Finally, after committing every sort 
of cruelty and indulging every bestial appetite, these human fiends 
departed for Chagres, where a division of the spoil left most of them 
with almost nothing, as Morgan fled to Jamaica with the rich bulk of 
the booty. 

It is well known that Morgan was never punished for his mis- 
deeds, but instead was rewarded, being made Governor of Jamaica 
and knighted. As Sir Henry Morgan, gallant knight and gentleman, 
he is now known to history! With this the greatest of the buccaneers, 
we will conclude our chapter, only halting to apologize to the smaller 
fry of pirates and freebooters that we have not time and space to give 
them all a fitting biography in these pages. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



CORO AND THE PARAGUANA. 



The Mysterious Peninsula. — Mud Huts and Muddy Complexions. — A Wild Sea 
and a Stormy Night. — Some Allusions to Morgan's Gold. — Treasure-Seekers 
of To- Day. 



N immense tract of land, called the Penin- 
sula of Paraguana, projects northward 
from the main coast line of Venezuela, 
and forms a portion of the eastern 
boundary of the great Gulf of Mara- 
caibo. It is little known, almost un- 
inhabited, and connected with the 
J- mainland by a long and narrow isthmus, known as 
el Isthmo de los Medanos, and rightly called the Sand- 
hills. The stretch of wind-swept sand gleams bright, 
curving around from the land, and finally becoming 
lost in the distance. Beyond, out of the clouds, rise the misty moun- 
tains, two in number, of the Paraguana. 

While we are approaching the Peninsula of the Paraguana, let us 
again recur to the old sea-rovers, whose exploits we have alluded to. 
There has always been a belief that the successful pirates left large 
deposits of buried treasure somewhere along the Spanish Main, and 
quite recently we found an account of an expedition in search of the 
gold supposed to have been buried by Morgan himself. Here is the 
notice, as we found it : — 




208 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

" Captain Robert Annett, an old mariner of many shipwrecks and thrilling 
adventures of the sea, is arranging for another expedition to the Island of Santa 
Catalina, in the Caribbean Sea, which was formerly the headquarters of the no- 
torious Captain Morgan, the buccaneer. In 1877 Captain Annett was pilot and 
interpreter of an expedition on the schooner ' Maria,' in search of the pirate's 
hidden gold. The yacht 'Maria' reached the island in November, 1877, an d 
the expedition remained there for three weeks without making any discovery. 
Permission was obtained to visit the island for the purpose of hunting, but 
the real nature of the expedition having been discovered, a Spanish man-of- 
war was sent to investigate. The ' Maria ' sailed away from one side of the 
island while the man-of-war was approaching the other. The 'Maria' pro- 
ceeded to Balize, and then spent three months searching for the phantom 
treasures on Turnefeccas in the Bay of Honduras. The machinery gave out, 
and the expedition headed for New York. Five days after leaving Balize, the 
schooner sprung a leak, and the crew were rescued one hour before the vessel 
sunk. 

" The island is a mile in circumference, mountainous, and a complete net- 
work of caverns. Buccaneer Morgan, after killing all the crew of every vessel he 
captured, would secrete the booty on the Island of Catalina, according to tradi- 
tion. Captain Annett says he has two men who have found treasure on the 
island. One of these is John Curry of Kingston, Ja., who discovered in a cave 
ten thousand dollars in Spanish doubloons. Curry told Captain Annett that 
he landed on the island from a Spanish vessel in search of wood and water. 
While there, he chased an iguana, which ran in a hole near one of the forts. 
Curry put his hand in the hole after the animal, and says it came in contact 
with masonry. He pulled out two or three stones and discovered that the 
masonry concealed the entrance to a large cave. Curry entered the cave and 
built a fire to give him light, and was astonished at what he beheld. 

" There were in the cave nine earthen jars, filled to the top with Spanish 
doubloons, and cases filled with jewels, while gold and silver ware were 
strewn around. Curry took away as much as he could conveniently carry 
without exciting the suspicion of the men on the vessel, who he feared would 
murder him if his secret was discovered. He went to Jamaica and spent his 
fortune in a few years. After his treasure was exhausted he returned to the 
island and was arrested there by the Indians of Old Providence and taken 
to Aspinwall, where he was imprisoned. Mr. Compton, the British consul at 
Aspinwall, interfered in Curry's behalf, and he was released. His story in- 
duced Compton to invest in an expedition to the island, and he secured the 
services of a British man-of-war. Curry was with the expedition, but refused 



CORO AND THE PARAGUANA. 209 

to disclose the treasure cave. He said he was afraid he would not get any of 
the find. Curry was threatened with lynching, and Mr. Compton committed 
suicide by blowing his brains out as a result of the expedition. 

" Alexander Archibald of Old Providence, while digging a well on Santa 
Catalina, struck an earthen jar with his spade. Thinking he had made a 
discovery, he sent his assistants back to Old Providence and pursued his 
investigations alone. When the jar was removed, Archibald found it to con- 
tain fifteen thousand dollars in Spanish doubloons. Captain Annett's new 
expedition will sail in the spring. Concessions have been obtained from the 
Government of Honduras for this expedition, and it will not be molested. It 
pays ten per cent to the Government and fifteen per cent to the Balize Produce 
Company of Honduras on all treasure found, for the privilege of prosecuting 
the search." 

It is more than doubtful if any treasure is found; but the searchers 
will some day be richer by an experience, and waste time and money 
in the search. These allusions to concealed treasure are constantly 
appearing in the public prints, and here is another, that we copy from 
the "New York Herald": — 

" News reached the Island of Tortola on the fifteenth ult. that while an 
excavation was being made on Norman's Island a large amount of Spanish 
coin was found. Two small anchors marked the spot, and were undoubtedly 
intended for its future identification. It was expected that on digging further 
more money would be discovered. The latest advices from Venezuela state 
that eight revolutionists landed on the coast between Puerto Cabello and 
La Guayra. They said they came from Curagoa in a Dutch vessel. They were 
immediately arrested. One of the party took refuge in a high tree, and having 
fired down upon his captors, he was shot." 

It will be noticed that nobody yet has seen this golden store in 
any quantity ; and we may well assume that they never will. But 
history records a few notable " finds " of sunken silver and gold, the 
most famous being that of Sir William Phipps, who located and ex- 
ploited a sunken galleon, in the West Indies, and thereby enriched 
himself and his king. 

All that time we are supposed to be steaming toward the open 

14 



2IO THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

sea, at midnight reaching the tempestuous part, where the Caribbean 
current meets and wars with the waters of Maracaibo. Before day- 
light the rolling of the ship had ceased ; we had almost circumnavi- 
gated the Paraguana, and its blue mountains lay to the west of us 
instead of to the east. We anchored in a great bay, open to the east, 
with the land about two miles away. The water in this bay is shal- 
low, and in times of storm the waves are high and angry. Abreast us 
stretched the isthmus, its medanos rosy in the sun of morning, a 
scant growth of green covering their crests, and only one clump of 
trees, of coco-palms, growing in their hollows. To the south, a 
brown-and-yellow beach was pointed out as the Vela of Coro. It is 
a most miserable apology for a town, consisting mostly of mud boxes 
for houses, with perhaps a dozen respectable buildings. The roofs of 
tiles and the medanos harmonize well with the landscape; and the 
white church tower, though short, is a pleasing feature. 

The largest and most important building here is the aduana, or 
custom-house, as it is in every port in Venezuela. Next to it is the 
guard-house, where live the ragged soldiers who enforce the authority 
of the comandante. These idle soldiers are clad in cotton shirt and 
pantaloons, cap and sandals, all very much the worse for wear. Their 
guns are muzzle-loaders, old-fashioned, of course, but objects of great 
solicitude apparently, as they carry them about wherever they go. 

Things " go slow " here. Official red-tape is awful. Our captain 
wished to obtain a rock from the beach, with which to anchor the 
mooring-buoy. First, he had to get permission from the comandante 
to take the rock, and then a ragged negro was detailed to go with us, 
to see that we took but one rock, and nothing else. This fellow's feet 
were bare, his trousers dirty, and he was bare-headed, while his old 
musket (the muzzle plugged with a cob) he handled like an Irishman 
with a crowbar. We got the rock from near the lighthouse ; and this 
structure, by the way, is nothing more than the stump of a tree with 
a battered old lantern perched about twenty feet from the ground, and 



CORO AND THE PARAGUANA. 



211 



reached by a rickety ladder. A score of boys accompanied us, the 
ragamuffins having nothing else to do, and they stuck by us a full 
hour, dodging us through all the streets, not from any ill-will, but out 
of mere curiosity. We had with us the captain's big dog, Princesse, 
who attracted more attention even than we did. At nearly every hut 
and house the women and children would rush to door and window 
and stare at us with admiring eyes. 
Many of the children ran into the neigh- 
bors' huts and solicited them to come 
out and see the biggest dog they had 
ever seen in their lives. Que perra ! 
(" What a dog ! ") and Tan grande esta 
perra ! (" What a great dog ! ") were the 
exclamations that greeted us at every 
corner. 

Innocent people and ignorant are 
these coast dwellers of Venezuela, and 
the simplest things excite their admira- 
tion. There are about a thousand of 
them living in and about this Vela de 
Coro, living with apparent content in 
their huts of adobe. 

I have long since noticed that there 
is a certain correspondence between the people of any country and 
their immediate environment. Here the land is parched and dry, 
brown and sterile. The houses, being made mostly of unbaked brick, 
or cakes of mud, are of course the color of the earth. The peo- 
ple, living in these mud huts, also have acquired this color, and 
their complexion is as nearly that of an unbaked brick of red earth, 
or clay, as it is possible to be. The children here go about naked 
up to a certain (or uncertain) age; they sit and roll and sleep and 
eat on the w T arm, naked lap of Mother Earth. As the children of 




THEY WOULD STARE AT US WITH 
ADMIRING EYES." 



212 



THE KXOCKABOUT CUB ON THE VANISH MA.N. 



teeth eut, and .ever lack s a„d in their c»w s ^ ^ ^^ 




A COFFEE-PLANTER'S HOUSE. 



t . for bein. so near the color of earth, they are 

we take into account, for being s revolutions. 

leS s liable to be seen and shot n ^ q^ ^ ^ rf 

But whether this protectee colo ever d ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 







A CACTUS-COVERED PLAIN. 



CORO AND THE PARAGUANA. 215 

nothing to be gained by it; nothing to steal except a goat or a 
jackass, the loss of which the whole town would be cognizant of by 
the next sunrise. 

Behind the Vela is a range of hills, very dry and sterile, cov- 
ered with cactus and divi-divi scrub, worthless for cultivation ; but 
back a mile or two is another, higher range, which is greener, more 
pleasing to the eye, and where the varying shades of verdure pro- 
claim cultivation, as well as the spaces of golden-brown earth. For 
there is a rich country behind all this, whence the coffee comes 
that loads this steamer every week, as well as her companion, the 
" Maracaibo." The other freight obtained here consists principally 
of goat-skins, the wearers of which once sported joyously on the 
cactus-covered hills before us. 

The captain and I concluded to visit Coro, the city of which 
the Vela is merely the port. Three leagues, or about eight miles, 
they reckon the distance, and it is all of that. Nearly every pound 
of freight for the steamers comes from Coro, drawn in carts, or 
on the backs of burros. There are but twelve carts in all Coro, 
and we met those twelve on the plain, each cart containing about 
one thousand pounds of coffee, and conducted by a driver, a black- 
and-tan Venezuelan, wearing cotton shirt and drawers, old straw 
hat and hempen sandals. These teams make two trips daily, and 
are constantly engaged in carrying hides and coffee to Vela. The 
comandante graciously permitted me to land with my camera. Without 
his permit I should have been liable to arrest when I returned ; 
for everything coming into the country is taxed. Our agent, Don 
Jullio, secured us a coche, drawn by two horses and guided by a 
boy with the prevailing complexion. It was a very shaky old coche, 
an old rattletrap on wheels, full of cracks and holes, and it rattled 
fearfully as our Jehu applied the whip to the horses. The har- 
ness was composed of leather lines and bits of rope, in about equal 
proportions, and it seemed as though our wiry equine skeletons 



2l6 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

would jump through the whole affair at every application of the 
whip. But it was a complicated arrangement, and it was impos- 
sible for the horses to free themselves. 

The cart-track to Coro straggles over an immense flat, covered 
with cactus and divi-divi bush. Here the goats and kids find con- 
genial retreats, and seem to thrive on the thorny and spiny fruit 
and leaves of the candelabrum cactus and prickly pear. No other 
animals are observed to haunt here, except the pachydermatous 
burro; and even the birds seem to have abandoned a spot so 
accursed with thorns and traps for unwary feet. 

No, I must not forget to mention the mocking-birds, now and 
then seen among the acacia-trees, nor the gay-colored troupials, look- 
ing like great and beautiful " golden robins ; " nor the queer birds, a 
species of fly-catchers, almost as large as cuckoos, with dove-colored 
breasts and black markings, that cried shrilly from the tops of the 
cacti. Ground-doves, in all their innocence, walked and fluttered 
over the ground under the scrub ; and we saw a small bevy of 
curious quail. 

After all, there must have been a good deal of animated life 
in that cactus-covered plain ; and doubtless it would have repaid 

investigation. Another bird we saw there was 

the vulture, sailing the air in circles ; but the 

vulture is omnipresent in these tropical regions, 

and his presence must be taken for granted. 

A rarer species, and one more nearly resembling 

an eagle than the vulture, we saw hopping along 

by the roadside, and that was the Caracas eagle. 

It is a true vulture, though much cleaner in its 

a scavenger. habit, I think, than the other species, and from 

its more alert and noble appearance seems to be 

as much a hawk or an eagle as a member of the vulture family. 

Infrequently, forlorn mud-houses claimed our attention, each a 




CORO AND THE PARAGUANA. 21 J 

box of mud with a hole for a doorway and another for a window, 
with black-and-tan children playing about them, and slatternly, low- 
browed women looking listlessly out of them. The few men we 
saw were dark and sullen, either sitting about doing nothing, or 
training fighting-cocks. A few pedestrians, mostly women, were 
scuffing through the dust, their faces half-hidden in their shawls. 
The women here thrust their feet into the forward halves of shoes 
and jam down the heels, wearing them like Moorish slippers, which 
have no heels at all. Thus they scuff along the streets, and where 
the streets are paved, you may hear the " click-clack, click-clack," 
all day long and far into the night. They wear no stockings, 
these women comprising the common classes, and very little apparel 
not visible at a casual glance. , They sit and roll in the mud and 
dust during childhood, and push those slipshod feet through dust 
and mud in womanhood ; and it may be imagined what attractive 
creatures of clay these women are. Yet, there are to be found men 
who consort with them, apparently love (at least, tolerate) them, 
and join with them in raising progeny just as black and dirty as 
themselves. 

Coro, the city, lies flat upon a plain, without a redeeming feature 
of beauty or attractiveness. It is said to be the oldest city in Vene- 
zuela, and they point out to you to-day, in one of the squares, the 
veritable cross planted here at the celebrating of the first Mass, in 
1527. Near by it is an old church, date of erection 1530. I ques- 
tioned the inhabitants as to the reasons that the first Spaniards 
had for settling here, and they themselves could not imagine any, 
except that there was an Indian settlement here previously, and the 
conquerors occupied it. This may be true, for those old Spanish 
robbers were prone to take from the Indian whatever they found him 
in possession of; and they would seize and occupy his town if only 
out of pure devilishness, merely that the aborigine should not have 
it to himself. 



2l8 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN 

There is no nearer harbor than the Vela, three leagues away, and 
it has no natural advantages, though it is now the outlet of a vast 
interior country, rich in coffee, tropical fruits and woods. Everything 
has to be carted to the Vela for shipment ; and it is not unlikely that 
a concession for a railroad or a tramway might prove profitable to 
some American. The land between Coro and the Vela is perfectly 
flat, and is rarely overflowed. Here is a city of twelve thousand, with 
another thousand at the port, and an unlimited country around to 
draw upon. I am not so sure but that it might be made a paying 
investment ; for there may not be so much poverty here as appears 
upon the surface. 

Quien sabe? Let some American, capable of such things, come 
out here and investigate. Venezuelans are always willing you should 
spend money in their country. As to how much they are willing one 
should take away, ask such men as Guzman Blanco, who now lives 
abroad with millions, it is said, that the Venezuelans badly need. 
However listless the natives may be in the matter of invested capital, 
they cannot be accused of lack of energy in taxing it, nor of neglect- 
ing any opportunity for giving the stranger a chance to leave some 
behind him. But I did not intend to digress. 

The agent of the steamer at Coro received us hospitably, and 
insisted on our staying to breakfast. His family consisted of himself, 
his charming mother and sister, and three brothers ; and we break- 
fasted delightfully in the corridor, with a perfumed patio (perfumed 
by flowers) at one side. 

One of the brothers went about with me, pointing out the objects 
of historic interest, which he lamented were so few, and explaining 
to the curious inhabitants that I was an historiador from North 
America, who had heard of Coro, -and wished to present its attrac- 
tions to a waiting world. 

Few, indeed, are the things ancient and interesting in Coro. I 
photographed the cross, the old church, the Palacio Gobierno (con- 



CORO AND THE PARAGUANA. 



219 



verted to its present use after serving as a nunnery), and a quaint old 
building called the Casa de las Ventanas de Hierro, or House with 
the Iron Windows. 

After this ramble through the hot streets, and a short siesta after 
breakfast, the time came for us to leave ; the coche was driven around 
to the door; and we said adieu to our hospitable hosts. But one 
thing mars the memory of this pleasant visit. The agent promised 
to get us off in two days, and then sent word the next day that some 
of the merchants objected. So we lay a day and a night in the open 
roadstead of the Vela, while half a gale was blowing, and the sea 
rolling in, in great windrows that threatened to engulf any approach- 
ing boat. As the promised cargo those merchants were to send 
amounted to a paltry boat-load of skins and coffee, and as there 
was a prospect that our " papers " would not be sent aboard under 
another twenty-four hours, we were all far from amiable. The tumul- 
tuous seas came in, chasing one another rapidly, seeming to revolve 
upon the bottom of the sea and break on all sides of us, angry and 
foaming white. The sun went down in a sky of brilliant yellow; but 
elsewhere than above his resting-place it was overcast and gloomy. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



MARACAIBO AND THE LAST LAKE-DWELLERS. 




A Cruise to Lake Maracaibo. — The Sleepy but Charming Old Dutch Port 
of Curacoa. — Maracaibo, its Harbors, Lake, Sandy Street^, Fleas, and 
Babies. — Lake-Dwelling Indians. — A Promise for Another Year. 

HAT was a perilous passage which the mate of our 
steamer made to the ship in the Vela of Conx 
As I wrote in my notebook, the boat of our 
mate, who was sent with a message ashore, was a 
dancing speck upon the waves, tossed hither and 
thither, but constantly returning to the charge and 
breasting them masterfully. 

Writing yet an hour later, I recorded that the little boat reached 
the ship, the two sturdy negroes at the oars pulling manfully, the mate 
with one hand at the tiller, unceasingly bailing out the water the great 
waves poured over her. They reached our side, a rope was thrown, and 
missed them ; then another, which the bowman caught. To me, look- 
ing upon this scene as a " land-lubber," it seemed pregnant with peril. 
Soon as the rope tautened and the boat's motion was arrested, the seas 
rushed upon and over her, she was dashed against the landing-stage 
and half buried in water, just as the mate succeeded in handing up the 
mail-bag and the captain's box of "papers." Before he himself had a 
chance to seize the lines, another deluge' swept the boat from stern to 
stern, completely filling it ; but as it was lifted upon the next wave, the 
mate scrambled quickly upon the steps and thence upon the deck. 



MARACAIBO AND THE LAST LAKE-DWELLERS. 223 

The blocks were hanging from the davits, and watching their time, 
the two boatmen hooked on and shouted loudly, " Haul her up ! " A 
dozen pairs of black and brawny hands were at the ropes, and soon 
the boat and its contents were safe, beyond the reach of the cruel 
waves that leaped up angrily as though enraged at being baffled thus. 
As a " land-lubber," I say, I thought this was perilous ; but the sailors 
laugh at it, as an event common enough, and which may take place 
on any one of their voyages. Still, regarding this episode from a 
landsman's point of view, I will stick to my opinion and declare that 
I would rather be in a place where I could go on shore at will than 
afloat in a small boat on these terrible seas. Just this very minute, a 
sea broke on our quarter that shook the steamer like a leaf, and made 
a report like thunder. Others may like it, but I will confess that I do 
not, — banging the seas in a stormy night with but a few feet of water 
under the ship's keel and a lee shore but a little over a mile away. 

But we escaped the perils of Coro, and steamed away for the dis- 
tant port of Maracaibo. It is of my visit to this lake and the city on 
its bank that I would write about. One hardly knows where to begin 
or what to present, when there come crowding upon him the incidents 
of a whole voyage, and the varied pictures of half a dozen different 
ports. He cannot " keep up with the procession," unless he writes 
incessantly and despatches a two-column letter home by every mail. 
To recapitulate a little : — 

After a five nights' run from Puerto Cabello, Curacoa lay before 
us, " all jagged and uneven," cool and sweet in the early morning, and 
with an aspect restful and inviting. 

As we reached the entrance to its magnificent harbor, the old 
pilot came off to us and took his place on the bridge. Not that we 
needed a pilot, for our captain had entered port so many times that 
the pilot was entirely superfluous ; but it relieves the owners of the 
steamers of a risk, and is a strict regulation of the island Government. 
Unlike, however, the pilots of most countries, this one is paid a stated 



224 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN 

salary by the Government, and does not exact extortionate fees for 
imaginary services. 

There was with us, as a passenger, the captain of a small vessel 
just wrecked on the Island of Aves, and he was seeking reparation for 
injuries sustained at the hands of the Venezuelans. As these Vene- 
zuelans suffer no opportunity to pass for robbing a mariner, they had 
laid claim to the vessel and her cargo, because the wreck occurred on 
Venezuelan soil — or rather, rocks. How the persecuted master es- 
caped I do not know, but I can well imagine that he was not suffered 
to depart until he had paid the uttermost farthing. 

Under the guidance of the pilot we entered, for the second time, 
the land-locked harbor of Curacoa, the finest in these seas and the 
prettiest. 

There is not much room to spare between the old stone forts that 
guard the entrance ; and the harbor is crossed by a pontoon bridge that 
slowly swings to one side as our steamer sails grandly in. Houses old 
and quaint, and unmistakably Dutch in design, line the lagoon on 
either side, and spread along the sea-front for a mile or so, north and 
south. One feels a sense of security here ; not only protection from 
storm and hurricane, but from the rapacity of the robbers of the main- 
land of South America, which lies behind a misty cloud-mountain 
forty miles away. I would gladly linger here and rest among the 
placid people that inhabit charming Curacoa ; but it is my purpose 
to push farther on and visit distant Maracaibo. It is a province so 
isolated that it would appear to belong to Colombia, rather than to 
Venezuela ; yet it is within a day's easy sail of Curacoa. The Amer- 
ican line there connects with two subsidiary steamers, named respec- 
tively the " Merida " and the " Maracaibo." Each is commanded by 
an able master, and each is a stanch and comfortable steamer. 

At the Curacoa docks, as we entered, we found these steamers in 
waiting, and they moved out to give us room, then steamed alongside, 
in turn, one to receive freight for Coro and the Para^uana, and the 



MARACAIBO AND THE LAST LAKE-DWELLERS. 



225 



other to deliver its cargo of hides and coffee. Transferring my trunk 
from the " Philadelphia " to the " Merida," — an easy matter, as the rails 




BELLE OF A GUAJIRO VILLAGE. 



of both were close together, — I soon found myself occupying a deck 
stateroom, with almost the entire steamer at my command. Travel be- 
tween Curacoa and Maracaibo is very light, as the country itself seems 



15 



226 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

outside the ordinary line of travel ; and the steamers were built more 
for freight than with a view to passenger accommodation. But the lat- 
ter is better than for any other line plying between the ports of Vene- 
zuela and other ports, and maintains the reputation of the American 
steamers in these waters. The captain was the personification of 
kindness ; the steward was Mr. John Thomas, who is a well-known 
caterer to sea-faring epicures. Our consul had adjured me to make 
the acquaintance of Mr. John Thomas, not only because he had the 
reputation of making a cocktail that would ward off malarious attacks, 
but also because he was better informed than many others regarding 
certain matters of importance. As a consequence, having sought the 
acquaintance of Mr. John Thomas, I fared sumptuously every day, 
and the Maracaibo malaria passed me by. This gentleman had 
travelled these seas many years, and with the present captain of the 
" Merida " had made numerous voyages as steward. He was the col- 
ored chef of the culinary department, and it was his strident voice 
that woke me every morning, accelerating the pace of his slow- 
going assistants, Jill and Josey. 

" Here, you sah ! step lively, now. Take up de gen'lemun's coffee. 
Wha' you loafin' about there for?" He claimed to be an old man, 
but he was more active than the boys, and set them an example of 
celerity and neatness. His cooking was excellent, his native dishes 
things to be remembered, and in preparing the armadillo, he excelled. 
The first bit of armadillo I ever ate was at his table ; it was delicious, 
rich, and tender. The shell, out of which Mr. John Thomas had 
unceremoniously " shucked " the animal, he saved for me, and I 
brought it home curled about an earthen water-cooler. 

But why should I attempt to enumerate the many virtues of Mr. 
John Thomas, when perhaps none of my readers will ever make his 
acquaintance? Why, indeed? Simply that it is every one's duty 
to mention a good thing when he sees it ; and a good cook and 
steward deserves the praise of every right-minded traveller. 




PIRATES REVISITING THE SCENES OF THEIR DEPREDATIONS 



MARACAIBO AND THE LAST LAKE-DWELLERS. 229 

Rumor reached us of fevers along the coast, and obstructions to 
travel in the interior ; but these did not deter us. At noon of the 
second day we sighted Fort San Carlos, — a low stone structure, with 
a little dependent village jutting out from the mainland, with which it 
is connected by a narrow strip of sand. This fort commands the 
channel leading into Lake Maracaibo. It is a dreary coast, with 
scrubby trees, and a distant backing of forest. All the water used 
here comes from little holes in the sand a mile or more distant, and is 
brought to the fort in small kegs, on the backs of soldiers. There is 
good hunting along this coast, and the few people living here are so 
hospitable that they will not let you pass their doors without halting 
for food and drink. 

An hour previous to reaching San Carlos we crossed the bar, 
piloted by a brown and shrivelled old man, who came aboard from a 
little sloop hovering a respectable distance away. This bar across the 
only channel of Lake Maracaibo prevents the entrance of large 
steamers, and it is constantly shifting. 

The commerce of Maracaibo is now mainly with the United 
States, and carried on through the medium of American steamers ; 
but ten years ago, according to the Consular Reports, it was chiefly 
foreign. Of the amount shipped that year T $4,188,677, nearly 
$4,000,000 was shipped in British bottoms. 

The great Lake Maracaibo is over one hundred miles in length. 
Its chief settlement and only port is the city of Maracaibo, which lies 
beyond the brackish waters of mingled lake and sea, on the shore of 
the lake itself. We steamed past Fort San Carlos, and in three hours 
were off the city, in an immense bay, crescent-shaped, bordered with 
palms. 

We came to anchor about a mile from shore, and were soon 
surrounded by the boats of the customs officers, who swarmed like 
rats over the gangway and upon the deck. I had thought the offi- 
cials of La Guayra as impudent and exacting as any I had ever 



23O THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

met, but these exceeded them. They would not allow a passenger 
to land unless he went direct to his house or to a hotel. No one 
was allowed to go on shore while nominally living on board ship, 
except the captain and the steward. No article of any kind could 
be taken ashore unless examined and passed by an official. The 
captain secured special permission for me to take my camera with 
me and to return to the ship, though the jefe (chief) was slow in 
granting it, and reluctantly said that he really ought not, but if I 
brought it with me he would try not to see it. I had no trouble 
during the time I was there, and photographed all I pleased. The 
authority of the chief having been recognized, there was no inter- 
ference from the civil authorities. 

The houses of Maracaibo are poorly constructed of rubble and 
concrete, with small wooden beams to give strength. They are 
plastered on the outside and painted in gay colors ; and from the 
steamer's deck the city seems filled with substantial and pretentious 
buildings. There are few structures of importance, even the cathe- 
dral being of mean appearance. The streets are beds of sand, with 
high sidewalks on either side, between which, in the rainy season, 
torrents of water flow to the bay. When the sand is dry (which is 
nearly all the time), it is the abiding-place of uncounted millions of 
fleas and thousands of naked babies, while the surplus is whirled 
about by the winds in the shape of blinding clouds of dust. The 
babies are so numerous that it is open to question if they be not a 
product of the sand, like the fleas. It is positively dangerous to ride 
through a street after dark, for the naked youngsters lie about in every 
direction, and they are so nearly a dirt-color that it is difficult to distin- 
guish them in the gloom. 

It is said that some of the population of Maracaibo have traces 
of the blood of the first conquerors ; but most of them are an inju- 
dicious mixture of Indian and Spanish. They constitute the Raza 
Indio Latino, — the Indio-Latin race, which is the dominant race in 



Ifilfi^ 

! I P I !"! '"''i"^-- ^'" r !. " ! ": :;! ! " ■ i ' ! "'"" : " '"""" r " "'"-" " ' ,: " '""" "" : ' : ' l!,::,i '" 




MARACAIBO AND THE LAST LAKE-DWELLERS. 233 

South America. The dress of the men is the same as throughout 
Venezuela; the ladies wear a head-dress called the abrigo, made of 
lace ; sometimes the seductora, a gaudily colored reboza worn over the 
shoulder. 

Maracaibo seems to have been an especial subject for the pirates' 
prey, for it was several times sacked. The pirate Morgan, following 




HOBBY-HORSE OF A MARACAIBO BABY. 



the example of the buccaneer Lolonois, sailed into that inland sea, 
Lake Maracaibo. The fort that guarded its entrance the pirates 
found deserted; but the Spaniards left a train of powder behind 
them with a lighted slow-match near it, which Morgan discovered 
just in time to save being blown into the air, with all his men, who 
had swarmed into the fort. As soon as the pirates entered Mara- 
caibo, they " searched every corner to see if they could find any 
persons hidden, for everybody had fled the place and buried them- 
selves in the forest. Not finding anybody, every party, as they came 
out of their ships, chose what houses they pleased to live in. Next- 
day they sent a troop of one hundred men to seek the inhabitants 



234 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

and their goods ; these returned next day, bringing with them thirty 
persons — men, women, and children — and fifty mules laden with good 
merchandise. All these miserable people were put to the rack, to 
make them confess where their treasure was. Among other tortures, 
one was to stretch their limbs with cords, and then to beat them with 
sticks. Others had burning matches placed betwixt their fingers and 
were burned alive. Others had cords twisted about their heads till 
their eyes burst out. Thus all inhuman cruelties were practised on 
these innocent people. Those who would not confess, or who had 
nothing to declare, died under the hands of these villains. These 
tortures and racks continued for three whole weeks, in which time 
they sent out daily parties to seek for more people to torment and 
rob, they never returning without new victims and riches." 

Then, having got together all the riches he could extort from the 
miserable people, Morgan sailed up the lake toward Gibraltar, which 
city likewise he found deserted. Only one poor half-witted man they 
found here, and him they tortured to death, tying him upon the rack, 
hanging him up with great weights suspended at his feet, and then 
burning him alive with palm-leaves. 

Upon returning to Maracaibo, the pirates learned that the en- 
trance to the lake was blockaded by three Spanish ships. The 
admiral had retaken and garrisoned the fort, and felt quite certain 
(as well he might have done) that he had the pirates at his mercy. 

He despatched them a bombastic letter, offering them pardon if 
they would surrender their prisoners and plunder, but death if they 
defied him. The buccaneers were in consternation, but they would 
not think of surrender. They prepared a great fire-ship, made to 
look like an ordinary vessel, with wooden men at the port-holes and 
on deck, and this they set adrift as they neared the Spanish fleet. 
All the prisoners the pirates put into one great boat, and in another 
they placed all the women, plate, and other rich things, while the 
fighting men went ahead, with the great fire-ship in front of them. 



MARACAIBO AND THE LAST LAKE-DWELLERS. 237 

Sad to relate, everything turned out to the pirates' desires, for the 
fire-ship fell afoul of the admiral's vessel and burned it to the water's 
edge, another Spanish ship ran aground, and the third surrendered. 
The crews of the sunken ships gathered in the forts, and as they had 
plenty of ammunition, prevented Morgan from sailing past it to the 
open sea. At last, by stratagem, the wily pirate slipped by, and finally 
made his way to Jamaica, his piratical stronghold. 

The most interesting of the inhabitants are the donkey boys, 
especially those who carry water about the streets. They may be 
seen everywhere, going to the lake shore and returning. Each little 
donkey has thrown over his back a light iron framework, supporting 
a large water jar on either side. Between the jars, and astride the 
donkey, sits the boy, usually a small one, with a fluttering shirt in 
rags as his only drapery. 

By pairs and by dozens these lively water-venders canter down 
the street and ride into the lake till the water is level with the don- 
key's back, then they swing the jars off the frame into the water and 
back again, and prance off, seeking customers. 

The lake water is brackish and unfit for drinking, yet I suspect 
the poorer people use it entirely. At all times of the day they may 
be seen bathing in it, and carrying it away for use in their huts. For 
a pair of jars filled with lake water the boys charge three cents, and 
they must drive a lively business with the people of the back streets ; 
yet they always appear half naked and poverty-stricken, though jolly, 
and full of mischief. 

We should not fail to mention that the beauty of Maracaibo lies 
in its bordering fringe of palms, which sweep around the bay over- 
hanging the shore ; and here the summer seats and retreats of the 
better classes are built, as well as the humble huts of the poorer. 
All tropical fruits grow here, though the soil is poor; and northern 
vegetables do not flourish. 

The bay of Maracaibo is magnificent, and with its belt of electric 



238 THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

lights at night gleaming through and over the palms, is beautiful. 
But the yellow fever lurks always beneath the palms ; in the summer 
season the lake is covered with a green scum that breeds disease, and 
the heat is wellnigh intolerable. 

Commerce with the interior is carried on by means of flat-bottom 
paddle-wheel steamers that ascend some of the rivers, such as the 
Catatumbo and Escalente, reaching the little-known province of Co- 
lombia and interior Venezuela. Many of the products of Colombia 
come down to the sea by these river steamers, which connect with 
other boats, called bongoes, that are propelled by poles. 

The markets of Maracaibo are pretty well supplied, as game is 
plentiful. Many strange things may be observed here hung up for 
sale to epicures, such as the iguana, the armadillo, etc. Numerous 
" tiger " skins are brought here, beautiful specimens being offered at 
about ten dollars each. For game and for adventure, the country 
reached through this Indian city, Maracaibo, holds out fascinating 
promises. 

Having reached this distant province, it seemed to us our journey 
had just begun ; but here we had to turn back with one of the portals 
to the mysterious continent invitingly open to us. It is a region not 
yet thoroughly explored, — that to the north of Maracaibo, — but 
would require several weeks or months at a different season of the 
year than that in which we were there. 

Ten miles below Maracaibo, the city, is a settlement of strange 
people, the Lake-Dwellers, who live in thatched huts over the water. 
Their houses are rude structures erected on piles driven into the 
sand in about two feet of water, and about a quarter of a mile from 
the land. 

They were discovered here nearly four hundred years ago, by the 
great Amerigo Vespucci, and here they live to-day just the same as 
their ancestors did in 1499, when the Spaniards first discovered them. 

We spent a day with them, photographed their huts, inspected 



MARACAIBO AND THE LAST LAKE-DWELLERS. 239 

their hammocks and apartments, and came away with very pleasant 
memories of the last of the historic Lake-Dwellers. Here they have 
lived for many generations in the same primitive huts, happy and con- 
tented, yet poor and neglected. They remind us of those other Lake- 
Dwellers of Switzerland, in their manner of life and dwellings, though 
those of Europe have long been extinct. 

Here, friendly readers of the " Knockabouts," we will take our 
leave, promising to conduct you next year through a country more 
interesting than even that of the Spanish Main. And as for adven- 
ture, my word for it, you shall have your fill. 



THE END. 



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1 vol., 8vo, cloth, gilt, ..---- 2.50 

" A beautiful volume and one that cannot fail to arouse 
intense interest." — Toledo Blade. 

" An excellent present for a boy or girl."— Boston Tran- 
script. 



ESTES & LAURIAT, Publishers, Boston, Mass. 



THE FAMODS "KNOCKABOUT CLDB" SERIES. 

''Delightful and wholesome books of stirring out-door adventure for healthy American 
hoys; hooks whose steadily increasing popularity is but a well earned recognition of intrinsic 




t _ 



THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 

By Fred A. Ober. In which the Knockabout Club visits Caracas, La Guayra, Lake Maracaibo, 
etc. Containing stories of the exploits of the pirates of the Spanish Main. Fully illustrated, 
i vol., small quarto, illuminated board covers and linings, .... $1.50 

1 vol., small quarto, cloth, bevelled and gilt, ....._ $2.00 

Uniform in style and price with the above, the other volumes of the series can be had as follows : 

THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB IN NORTH AFRICA. 

By Fred A. Ober. An account of a trip along the coast of the Dark Continent, caravan 
journeys, and a visit to a pirate city, with stories of lion hunting and life among the Moors. 
Fully illustrated. 

THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB IN SPAIN. 

By Fred A. Ober. A panorama of Seville, the Guadalquivir, the Palaces of the Moors, the 
Alhambra, Madrid, Bull-fights, etc. Full of original illustrations, many full-page. 

THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB IN THE ANTILLES. 

By Fred A. Ober. A visit to the delightful islands that extend in a graceful line from Florida 
to South America, accompanied by a " Special Artist." 78 illustrations. 

THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB IN THE EVERGLADES. 

By Fred A. Ober. A visit to Florida for the purpose ef exploring Lake Okechobee, on which 
trip the boys encounter various obstacles and adventures with alligators, etc. 55 illustrations. 

THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB IN THE TROPICS 

By C. A. Stephens. From the ice-fields of the North to the plains of New Mexico, thence 
through the " Land of the Aztecs," and the wonderful ruins of Central America, to the "Queen 
of the Antilles." 105 illustrations. 

THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB ALONGSHORE. 

By C. A. Stephens. A journey alongshore from Boston to Greenland, with descriptions of 
seal-fishing, Arctic Scenery, and stories of the ancient Northmen. 137 illustrations. 

THE KNOCKABOUT CLUB IN THE WOODS. 

By C. A. Stephens. A boy's book of anecdotes and adventures in the wilds of Maine and 
Canada. An account of a vacation spent in healthy amusement, fascinating adventure, and 
instructive entertainment. 117 illustrations. 



ESTES & LAURIAT, Publishers, Boston, Mass. 



YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORIES 

YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS. 

A concise history of Holland and Belgium, from the earliest times, in which the author goes over the ground 
covered by Motley in his standard histories of these most interesting countries, and brings the narrative down to 
the present time. By Alexander Young, i 50 illustrations. 

YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF AMERICA. 

From the earliest times to the present. A new edition. With a chapter and additional illustrations on the Life and 
Death of President Garfield. Edited by H. Butterworth, author of "Zigzag Journeys." With 157 illustra- 
tions. Over 10,000 copies sold in one year. 

YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF MEXICO. 

Comprising the principle events from the sixth century to the present time By Fred. A. Ober, author of " Camps 

in the Caribbees." With 100 illustrations. 
The intimate relations of our country with Mexico, which the railroads and mines are developing, make this volume 

one of the most important in the entire series. 

YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 

By Nathan Haskell Dole. With no illustrations. 

THE GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. 

YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF LONDON. 

With graphic stories of its historic landmarks. By W. H. Rideing. With 100 illustrations. 

YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF BOSTON. 

By H. Butterworth, author of "Zigzag Journeys," etc. With 140 illustrations. 

CHARLOTTE M. YQNGE. YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORIES. 

YOUNG FOLKS' BIBLE HISTORY. With 132 illustrations. 

YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF ENGLAND. With 60 illustrations by De Neuville, E. Bayard and others. 

YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF FRANCE. With 84 illustrations by A. De Neuville, E. Bayard and others, 

YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF ROME. With 114 illustrations. 

YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF GREECE. With 51 illustrations. 

YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF GERMANY. With 82 illustrations. 

YOUNG FOLKS' EPOCHS OF HISTORY. 

YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 

A concise and impartial account of the late war, for young people, from the best authorities both North and South. 
By Mrs. C. Emma Cheney. Illustrated with 100 engravings, maps and plans. 

YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION. 

In Germany, France, England and other Countries. By Fred H. Allen. A graphic account of the men 
and the movements by which the great religious revolution which resulted in the establishment of Protestantism 
was carried on, from the early centuries of Christianity to the end of the Reformation. Fully illustrated. 

YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF THE QUEENS OF SCOTLAND. 

These valuable books are condensed from Strickland's Queens of Scotland by Rosalie Kaufman, and are at once 
reliable and entertaining to both old and young folks. Fully illustrated. 2 vols., i6mo, cloth. . . $3.00. 

YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. 

From the Norman Conquest. Founded on Strickland's Queens of England. Abridged, adapted and continued to 
the present time. By Rosalie Kaufman. With nearly 300 illustrations. 3 vols., i6mo, cloth . $4.50. 

LIBRARY OF ENTERTAINING HISTORY. 

Edited by Arthur Gilman, M. A. 
INDIA. By Fannie Roper Feudge. With 100 illustrations, . . . . 

EGYPT. By Mrs. Clara Erskine Clement. Wirfi 108 illustrations, 
SPAIN. By Prof. James Herbert Harrison. With hi illustrations, 
SWITZERLAND. By Miss Harriet D. S. Mackenzie. With 100 illustrations, 
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE. With 175 illustrations, . 

All the above volumes are published as 16mos, in cloth, at $1.50. 

ESTES &t LHURIHT, Publishers, 
BOSTON, MASS. 



$1.5° 
1.50 
1.50 
1.50 
1.50 



HOUSEHOLD NECESSITIES. 



SOCIflli CUSTOMS. 

New edition, reduced in price. Complete Manual of American Etiquette. By Florence 
Howe Hall, daughter of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. Handsomely printed, and neatly bound in 
extra cloth, gilt top, uncut. Small 8vo. $1.75 

Do you always know just what to do ? Do you know how to encourage Mrs. D. Light" 
ful, accept and return her courtesies, as tney deserve; and politely but firmly avoid and defeat 
Mrs. Bore in her inroads on your privacy and more agreeable engagements ? If you do not, let us 
recommend for every social question the above entertaining and instructive book, or its new 
baby relative, "The Correct Thing," mentioned below, for with these two books, one can 
make no mistake in life, as every possible question may be answered from their combined 
wisdom. They are comprehensive, practical, reliable and. authoritative. 

TJ4E CO**$ECT TfilfiG. 

By Florence Howe Hall, author of " Social Customs." i8mo. Very neatly bound in 

extra cloth, gilt top, --... $0.75 

Same, Bound in full flexible morocco, gilt edges (in a box) . . . . . . #1.25 

This new manual is neatly printed in a size not too large to be slipped into the pocket, and 
is arranged so that one page reminds the reader that " It is the correct thing " to do this, 
while per contra the opposite page tells him that "It is not the correct thing " to do that. 
Its conciseness recommends it to many who would not take the time to master any more compre- 
hensive manual. 

" It is, indeed, a treasure of good counsel, and, like most advice, it has the merit of not 
being expensive." — Montreal Gazette. 

PAYOR'S ^ITGHEfi COJVTPA^IOJSL 

A Guide for All who would be Good Housekeepers. 

Handsomely printed, and very fully illustrated. Large 8vo. (nearly 1000 pages). Neatly 
bound in extra cloth or in waterproof binding. $2.50 

ft^* It is thoroughly practical ; it is perfectly reliable ; it is marvellously comprehensive ; 
it is copiously illustrated. It is, in short, overflowing with good qualities, and is just the book 
that all housekeepers need to guide them. 

Miss Parloa's new book has proved a remarkable success, and it could hardly have been 
otherwise. Exhaustive in its treatment of a subject of the highest importance to all, the result 
of years of conscientious study and labor upon the part of one who has been called "the apostle 
of the renaissance in domestic service," it could not be otherwise than 
welcome to every intelligent housekeeper in the land. 

"This is the most comprehensive volume that Miss Parloa has 
ever prepared, and, as a trusty companion and guide for all who are 
travelling on the road to good housekeeping, it must soon become a 

necessity No amount of commendation seems to do justice 

to it." — Good Housekeeper. 

PRHUOR'S f4E(jU COOK BOOK AJSLD }VIAIWET~ 

IftG GUIDE, 

i2mo. Cloth. - $1-50 

This is one of the most popular Cook Books ever printed, con- 
taining 1724 receipts and items of instruction. The directions are clear 
and concise, and the chapters on marketing and kitchen furnishing 
very useful. 




in -o • 



ESTES 5* LHURIHT, 

BOSTON, MASS. 



Publishers. 







LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

015 807 113 7 



